Harry Potter: the Awesome Squib (TM)!
by FictionA
Summary: Harry Potter is the Awesome Squib (TM). As a science prodigy, he knows how to convert his know-how to money and power over the Dursleys, and grew up being very famous in the Muggle World and overly confident. When he finds his fame in the Wizard World, he knows exactly how to make money from it. AU.
1. Chapter 1

**Harry Potter: the Awesome Squib (TM)!**

All characters belong to JKR. All insanity in this story belongs to me, Muahaha! The chapters are quite short (about 1-2 thousand words), so the preamble take quite a few chapters before we get into action. If you read until chapter 5 and still don't like this story, stop reading.

This is almost a crack fic, with silliness here and there. Everything takes place in a parallel universe, where Harry grew up like a King (in sharp contrast to servant) with over-confidence and a talent in science and business. I model his character a bit after Tony Stark (Iron Man), Mr. Bean and Angry Bird, among others... So this story may be pure madness or pure awesomeness, depending on your taste. :)

-oOoOo-

Chapter 1

-oOoOo-

"Yer a wizard, Harry."

Harry crossed his arms, staring at Hagrid with dreary, weary green eyes. A sigh, heavy than mercury, was puffed from his mouth. "Not funny. Definitely not funny. Unless you're a distraction while your thief comrades are entering through the backdoor, of course."

Vernon's eyes widened and was about to leave the living room to check the backdoor, just when Harry interrupted.

"Uncle Vernon, do you think leaving us alone with this self-proclaimed half-giant is a good idea?"

Vernon froze, looking confused.

Harry made a mental note to speed up his plan to find a second bodyguard.

"And you!" Harry addressed Hagrid. "I don't care if you have Klinefelter syndrome or something. If you want me to help cure your illness, just say so. No need to stage drama, ok?"

Rubbing her eyes lazily as if having just woken up from a dream, Petunia whispered to Dudley's ear. "What's that syndrome he's talking about?"

Dudley, who had been grinning the whole time, said quickly. "A genetic disorder. Taller than average and having feminine characteristics, like large breasts. Often infertile."

"Huh?" Petunia looked surprised, eyeing Hagrid's gigantic breasts with envy. "How did you know all that?"

Dudley pouted. "Mum, I've been Harry's lab assistant for years!"

"Oh... right."

"This is the 2,493rd time I told you that, Mum. But this is alright. I still love you." Dudley pulled Petunia in for a hug. The woman embraced her son and had tears in her eyes.

Hagrid also had tears in his eyes. "Harry, yer so mean."

Harry screamed melodramatically. "What do you mean I'm mean? I'm sure I'm at least 6 standard deviations above the mean!"

Hagrid didn't seem to have understood Harry's stats joke. He blew his nose into his dirty, wrinkled handkerchief.

Harry sighed, giving in. "Alright, alright. I will try my best to cure you. But the stage of technology we have at the moment is highly experimental. That means it is dangerous to use on humans. And we…"

"I told ya I'm not 100% human. I'm a half giant! Now stop making fun of me!" Hagrid blew his nose some more.

"I told ya I'm not a wizard. I'm just awesome at science. Now stop making fun of me!" Harry screamed at the top of his lungs. "So you want my help or not. If you don't, just leave! If you do, shut up and follow me!"

-oOoOo-

Albus Dumbledore rubbed his temples thrice. "Minerva, did you just fart?"

McGonagall looked outrageous. "Albus, I was about to complain! How dare you blame that on me? Your room does smell like shit!"

"Please calm down, Cat-woman." Albus said in a gentle tone. "The odour issue can wait until the urgent matter on hand is addressed. So would you like to take a seat or a lemon drop?"

McGonagall sat down begrudgingly, casting a bubble head charm on herself.

Dumbledore smiled with satisfaction, but his face turned grim when speaking. "Our school has lost You-Know-How-Big. How could I continue to do the 'size does not matter' campaign?"

McGonagall sank in her chair. "What happened to Hagrid? Didn't you send him to deliver a Hogwarts letter to Harry Potter?"

"Yes I did. What a grave mistake." Dumbledore was a little teary. "Hagrid has been, Quote Harry, restored to his _rightful_ size, End Quote."

"WHAT on earth?"

"And Harry didn't even believe he was a wizard."

"WHAT? Hagrid could have.."

"Harry confiscated Hagrid's wand and gave him a 'better' weapon to defend himself from bullies." Dumbledore chuckled, showing her an object with Harry Potter trademark. "Harry called it a stun pen. Looks like an ordinary Muggle writing utensil, but it is actually a gun that casts Stupefy curse but better."

"Merlin, WHAT?"

"According to the manual," Dumbledore opened a booklet. "The normal mode is for unarmoured humans. The piercing mode can go through even crocodile's skin. The gas mode will emit stunning gas. The light and sound modes will create a blinding light and a deafening sound accordingly."

As Dumbledore closed the booklet, a sharp feminine voice growled from under Dumbledore's desk.

McGonagall's face flushed fifty shades of red. She didn't know. She didn't know Dumbledore was…!

"No I'm not bisexual, Minerva. I'm exclusively into boys."

McGonagall rolled her eyes.

Dumbledore addressed the person under his desk. "You alright? ... Good."

A handsome boy emerged from Dumbledore's desk, his hair dark and ruffled. McGonagall dropped her jaw. She had never seen such a handsome boy before, despite having taught at Hogwarts for so many decades.

"Minerva, let me introduce you to the new Hagrid."

"Headmaster, I take it the gas mode works then?" Hagrid asked with a soft, cultured young lady's voice.

"It does, Hagrid. It does. Though it does, Quote Minera, smell like shit, End Quote."

"Hagrid," McGonagall asked with great concern. "What did Harry do to you?"

Hagrid looked thoughtful. "The procedure involved a potion he calls… Reverse Growth Hormones and some ritual magic."

"Magic? But he didn't believe he was a wizard!"

"Sorry, Ma'am. Those are not Harry's exact words. It was how I understand it."

"Do you see the implication, Minerva?" Dumbledore got up from his chair. "The Elixir of Life may be able to extend life, but this is a whole new level of discovery. It entails great danger should dark wizards hear even the slightest of it. We thus need to see Harry Potter, right away."

-oOoOo-

To be continued.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

-oOoOo-

A robot, 10 foot tall, with a mechanical touch-looking body, stood threateningly before the entrance, as if owning the house. It hissed in a no-nonsense, don't-mess-with-me tone, "State your purpose of visit."

Dumbledore looked at Hagrid expectantly. "You didn't mention this."

"It wasn't here last time I visited, Headmaster."

The robot looked bored. "I was born ten minutes ago. So, I wasn't here an hour ago. Now, state your purpose of visit."

Dumbledore seemed to have decided on something. "Not necessarily, with magic, time travelling is very possible."

"Prove it!"

Dumbledore shuddered a bit. This sounded so like Tom Riddle. "That... is not our purpose of visit tonight, but we can prove it to Mr. Potter. Can we see him please? It concerns Mr. Potter's personal safety that we have to speak with him in person, and urgently."

"Mr. Potter is fully aware of the possibility that his awesome technologies might be stolen and misused. He is not stupid."

"I didn't say he was. I just hoped to give him critical information concerning the future. His future. Surely he hadn't heard of Hogwarts, Chocolate Frog and Lemon Drops?"

"Are you claiming to know the future?"

"That... is enough, Robot." Dudley came into view in a rush. "Mr. Potter has verified his claim of time travelling. Now, Professor Dumbledore," Dudley handed Dumbledore a remote controller with one button. "Please go back in time for one hour, and press this button."

Dumbledore stroked his beard slowly. "Interesting. May I ask what this button does?"

Dudley looked annoyed, crossing his arms. "Your future self didn't explain that to you?"

Dumbledore shook his head. "But I can guess. It relays certain information from the future to the past."

"Obviously you are not stupid, but your future self is."

"Interesting." Dumbledore looked thoughtful. "But maybe my future self does not see the need to explain that to me since you are going to do it anyway?"

Dudley looked angrier by the minute, his voice getting louder and louder. "If your future self explained that to you, it would have saved us plenty of time!"

Dumbledore watched Dudley with amusement. He made a decision right there, that he would not give his past self any explanation because he had fun watching an angry pig, not because he wanted to avoid time paradox. The Headmaster left for a telephone booth, closed the door, and without delay, opened the door again. He came out in a Superman suit, with red underwear on the outside.

McGonagall looked aghast. Even Snape would have a fashion sense better than this. "What... have you done, Albus?"

"It was so thoughtful of Harry to have given me this Muggle superhero costume. He said I came from Planet Wizard to save the Earth."

"This way, lady and gentlemen." Dudley led them to a massive, underground laboratory.

"Sorry Albus, I couldn't resist the urge to test-run Robot." Harry Potter said, his eyes not leaving the big computer screen on the wall, which showed several progress bars and numbers. "Dudley, give him his copy of the contract."

McGonagall gave Dumbledore a pair of puppy-curious eyes.

"Minerva, Mr. Potter here agrees to come to Hogwarts on the condition that he has unlimited access to the school library and time tuners. In turn, he will provide a generous scholarship fund of 1 million galleons for students with financial difficulty, and a Superman suit. He also agrees to temporarily relocate his laboratory to Hogwarts while I provide protection but non-interference unless specifically requested."

McGonagall promptly fainted.

"Harry," Hagrid said softly. "1 million galleons is a lot of money. You don't have to."

Harry grinned. "The agreement was made half an hour ago. My lawyers just took time to draft it."

"But you don't have that much money in Gringotts!"

"Wait!" Harry was in an alert mode. "I have a bank account I do not know about? Are you from the future?"

"Harry –" Dumbledore cut in. "Your parents left you a sum of money in your family's magical vault."

"I must retain full custody of my financial interests, magical or not." Harry said sternly. He did not give Dumbledore an option.

Dumbledore gave the boy a calculating look. "Normally it is not a good idea to give underage students complete financial control, but I think you have proven yourself." Dumbledore looked at the sheer size of the lab, impressed. It was obvious that Harry owned it. "An exception can be made."

"Then there is still the question of how you managed to gain control of the vault in the first place?" Harry couldn't believe that his parents would leave their property under care of someone who'd never paid him a single visit until today.

"I am not just a school headmaster but also Chief Warlock of the Wizengamot, Harry. But this is the topic for another time."

"Alright." Harry still looked sceptical but gave in nevertheless. He filed that for research later when he gained access to Hogwarts Library and other Wizard information sources. "But if you possess anything else that should belong to me or my family, you can hand it over to me now."

"Very well." Dumbledore said after a moment. "Fawkes?" The firebird appeared from thin air, squeaking at Dudley. "Bring me the Cloak of Invisibility please."

Harry looked at the phoenix with wide eyes, screaming. "Teleportation? Oh no. Oh no.. my security system is ruined. Totally ruined!"

Dumbledore looked amused at the boy's drama. "I'm glad that you begin to see the extent to which your personal safety is endangered, Harry."

Meanwhile, Dudley screamed and ran for his life.

Dumbledore chuckled heartily. "Fawkes loves playing Angry Bird."

"HEEEELPPPP!" Dudley ran in circles, chased after by an Angry Fawkes.

Harry nodded. "He sure looks like a pig."

"I am glad we have come into a mutually beneficial agreement, Harry." Dumbledore said. "I believe this is our cue to leave and make necessary arrangements."

Hagrid cleared his throat reluctantly. "Can I have my wand back, Harry?"

"Oh, of course." Harry looked a little guilty. "But by all means, please keep the stun pen."

"Rennervate!" Dumbledore casted the revival charm on McGonagall.

She drowsily got up. "Mr. Potter, I never requested this of my students, not to mention future students, but could you please deploy your Reverse Growth Hormones magic on me to get rid of the wrinkles?"

-oOoOo-

"Harry, I am certain awe-inspiring things happen around you, but I did not anticipate this." Dumbledore said, greatly amused, a grin having been plastered to his face for a couple of hours.

"If you could anticipate it, would it inspire awe?" Harry asked, annoyed.

Dumbledore's eyes were gleaming. "The news of handsome school gamekeeper and sexy deputy headmistress has spread like fire, and as such I received hundreds of transfer requests in the last few hours."

Harry looked uncomfortable. "The firebird is amazing."

Dumbledore smiled, thinking that the boy had much to learn if he wanted to change a conversation topic tactfully. "Yes he is, Harry, yes he is. Fawkes proves to be more than just a pet. He is a friend."

"A friend you say?" Harry scrunched his face. "Given his usefulness, I guess you have made numerous requests of him. Has he ever made any request of you?"

For once, Dumbledore didn't know what to say, but he was saved by an old barman who was using binoculars to peer at Harry although they were just inches apart. "Good Lord! Is this – Is this the legendary – ?"

Harry beamed. "You have a fascinating way of saying that human anatomy is fascinating. Even Albus from Planet Wizard is not that weird!"

"What an honour." The barman whispered.

"Here." Harry extracted a signed autograph from his pocket and offered it to the stranger. "I always come prepared for my fans. Please like my Facebook fan page, follow me on Twitter, and subscribe to my Youtube channel, will you?"

The barman looked confused but agreed nevertheless. "Of course, Harry Potter, of course."

The crowd perked at this enthusiastically.

"Harry Potter is here?"

"Someone says Harry Potter?"

"What a fantastic day!"

Harry took time to hand out autographs to his fans and shook their hands. He had plenty.

Dumbledore rubbed his temples thrice.

"H-H-Harry P-P-Potter. It's a p-pleasure to m-meet you."

"Have you consulted a therapist to cure your stuttering?" Harry said kindly, shaking hands with a weird-looking guy wearing a purple robe and purple turban. "I heard the Fluency Shaping Therapy is very effect-"

Quirrell screamed painfully before Harry finished the sentence.

Harry shot him with a stun pen. "There. Pain gone. Dumbledore – clear the space, remove the crowd!"

"But Harry –"

"To save his life, do as I say!" Harry said sharply. He tapped his glasses. "Jarvis? Do you see what I'm seeing?"

"Yes, a man with one head but two faces. There's no medical record of something like this."

"Who're you talking to, Mr. Potter?" The barman asked with concern.

"A.I. but you can't hear him. Can you help me remove his turban. NOW."

The barman nodded wordlessly. Though a little frightened, he did as asked.

"Shit!" Harry cried, reading Quirrell's pulse activity on his glasses screen while sorting through the first aid kit he carried around.

The barman screamed upon seeing the ugly face at the back of Quirrell's head. He slapped Voldemort's face back and forth in panic, like Serena Williams hitting a tennis ball.

"Stop THAT!" Harry barked and pushed the barman away. He quickly gingerly examined the bruises on Voldemort's face. But not before long... his consciousness slipped away.

-oOoOo-

"Harry, I'm afraid that we have to do school supply shopping on another day." Dumbledore said gently from a side of his bed.

"Where am I? What happened?" Harry tried to focus, but his vision was so blurry.

"You're at the School's Hospital Wing, Harry." Dumbledore chuckled softly. "Besides awe, I also expect chaos from you. But this is much sooner than I expected."

"Did the man.. survive?"

Dumbledore looked saddened. "You've got rid of the evil spirit within him, but no, he did not survive." When Harry looked like he was about to cry, Dumbledore said quickly. "No, Harry, his downfall is not your fault at all. The man was dead the minute he allowed the evil spirit to possess his body."

Harry cried loudly. "I've tried that for years but with no progress at all! Why didn't you guys tell me sooner that you could DOWNLOAD consciousness from one person into another? This is freaking AWESOME!"

-oOoOo-

To be continued.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

-oOoOo-

"OK. So here are a grandfatherly figure, a stern-looking teacher and a baby-faced boy. Do you want to play good cop/bad cop/neutral cop now?"

Dumbledore, McGonagall and Hagrid exchanged glances but remained speechless, listening to the ramblings of the Boy-Who-Lived patiently.

"The answer is still no. There is no way I'm gonna take any of your medicine unless they pass rigorous randomised controlled trials with peer reviews, replications and meta-analyses."

"But from what I understand," Dumbledore objected. "your experiment on Professor McGonagall and our Hagrid was not subject to the standards you just prescribed."

"They are human subjects in the early stages of testing after tests in animals prove to be safe enough. And besides, they had full knowledge of the risks involved and signed consent forms! Now, tell me, how can you claim that the Calming Draught potion is safe and effective?"

"Because many people had taken it and achieved the desired results with no side effects?" McGonagall offered.

"Anyone else?" Harry eyed the other two.

"Why don't you illuminate us, Harry?" Dumbledore asked patiently with a smile.

Harry sighed. "You guys suck at the scientific method. But this is the topic for another time."

Dumbledore said diplomatically. "Of course, we suck, Harry, of course."

"What? You want to suck me?"

Dumbledore had no idea what Harry was talking about. "Is that your wish?"

"Jeez. Are you homo or something?"

"How did you know that our Headmaster is homosexual?" McGonagall blurted out. "I should have known it before I tried seducing him!"

Harry rolled his eyes before changing the topic. "How are you, Hagrid?"

"I ain't no homo, Harry, thank you, but if you can fix my voice that would be really nice."

Harry brightened. "I can do that. Indeed I will give you Andrea Bocelli's voice if I can leave this _damned_ place right now."

"Mr. Potter," McGonagall said sharply. "If you are to be one of our students, respect for the school and staff will be demanded. Is that understood?"

"Miss McGonagall," Harry retorted in the same tone. "If you are to be one of my teachers, don't just tell me what to do. Rationales and evidence will be demanded. Is that understood?"

McGonagall's lips twitched. The Marauders had been pain to her for complete lack of respect for school rules and lack of reason. By contrast, Harry Potter could be great pain to her for complete lack of respect for school rules BUT sheer amount of reason AND insanity.

"Hagrid, let's go." Harry got up from the bed, releasing himself from the Hospital Wing.

"Mr. Potter, I haven't finished." McGonagall reprimanded.

"Thank you, Professor McGonagall. You just reminded me that life is nothing but an unfinished song."

With that, Harry left.

And Hagrid hurriedly followed.

McGonagall dropped her jaw. It sounded like something Albus would have said.

"Oh dear." Dumbledore rubbed his temples thrice.

-oOoOo-

"Mr. Potter," Dudley in his white lab gown bowed deeply. "Albus from Planet Wizard has successfully relocated your lab to a secure location 7 km under Hogwarts. All equipment has been tested. They all function properly."

"How did he do it?"

"Magic?" Hagrid offered.

Harry gave Hagrid a glare that could kill. "Nobody asked you."

"So, Dudley, you know this lab eats a lot of electricity. Did he find an underground power source or a way to transmit electricity to this place?"

"Magic?" Dudley offered.

Harry gave Dudley a glare that could kill. "Nobody asked you."

"You did." Hagrid said.

"Nobody asked you!" Harry and Dudley shouted at Hagrid at the same time. They stared at each other for a moment, and then broke into a fit of laughter.

Even Hagrid joined the laughter with his girly voice.

"Harry," Hagrid said after the laughter died down. "we have some trolls in a prison under this lab, riding bicycles to generate electricity."

"Trolls? The magical creature sort or the forum sort?"

"You knew the answer before you asked, Mr. Potter." Dudley grinned playfully. "Did you just use your Time Tuner?"

"Thank you for your cheek, Dudley. Now work on emergency and contingency plans on both safety and power source aspects. Evaluate the risks, costs and benefits. Also give me some options."

"Right away, Mr. Potter."

"Not now. Do that later. Your first priority is reprogramming Robot to be my shopping assistant. I want someone to carry my stuff around."

"Right away, Mr. Potter."

"Good. Hagrid, follow me. I can change your voice, but only after you sign this..."

-oOoOo-

"Mr. Potter, I'm not sure I want to do this." McGonagall said.

"OK I'll guarantee you an annual income of 7000 galleons, but you'll instead get a 10% cut should the revenues exceed that threshold. Happy now?"

"That is... not I intended to say, Mr. Potter." McGonagall paused. "Though 7000 galleons sound very nice."

"Good! Sign this."

-oOoOo-

"Remember, Harry, you must not reveal what you did to Professor McGonagall and Hagrid."

"You don't have to repeat everything you say, Albus from Planet Wizard. It's been a long time since I watched Teletubbies."

Robot promptly explained. "Teletubbies is a children programme on Muggle television, promoting an alien invasion conspiracy theory. And since they believe that children are idiots, they say everything twice."

"I... see." Dumbledore said slowly. "Are Muggle children really idiots?"

"Of course not!" Harry said hotly. "But the adults are, and they want children to become idiots like them."

"That sounds very cunning to me." McGonagall remarked.

"Maybe the adult Muggles are secretly smart but pretend to be insane, like Dumbledore?" Hagrid offered.

Dumbledore gave Hagrid an enquiring look.

"Sorry." Hagrid muttered. "I can't keep my mouth shut sometimes."

Dumbledore nodded silently and stepped into the bar. "Ah.. Tom, great to see you again."

"Don't. Don't bring that boy in here." The barman hid under the counter, his body trembling. "Just don't."

"What happened, Tom?"

"The boy attracts trouble to people around him. Must. Retreat. Must. Leave." Tom's face paled.

"Drink this, Tom. You'll feel better" Albus gave Tom a vial, which the barman emptied in one gulp.

"Calming Draught?" Harry asked, sipping hot tea from a grey metal bottle he brought from home, since he didn't want to drink or eat anything magical before its sample was sent to his lab.

"A Muggle medicine called Placebo."

Harry sprayed tea from his mouth all over Tom's head. Thanks to gravity, the tea dripped to Tom's horror-struck face for Harry's amusement.

"Sorry." Harry said with a grin. There was no apology in his voice whatsoever.

Dumbledore took no time to evaluate the situation and send commands around. "Hagrid, please stay here with Tom. Minerva, Harry, come with me, please."

Harry shook his head shyly. "Haven't reached puberty yet. I can't come with you."

Suddenly Harry saw red sparks from a corner of his eyes. Dumbledore was hit in the back.

"You are under arrest, Professor Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore." The attacker said calmly while handcuffing a stunned Dumbledore.

"Not funny, Minister Fudge."

"Paedophilia is a serious crime, Professor McGonagall." Fudge said with a twinkle in his eyes. "I've just witnessed him seducing you and the boy."

"You see?" Tom the barman cried, emerging from the counter and pointing at Harry accusingly. "The boy's a trouble magnet!"

Hagrid was petting Tom like petting a dog, his lips mouthing "Sorry."

"The boy?" Fudge asked sheepishly.

"MINISTER FUDGE!" Harry commanded angrily. He said with a voice of authority that made Fudge shudder. "Release 'Albus from Planet Wizard' this instant!"

"Release him from.. what?"

McGonagall stepped in, her mind set to stop the fire of anger from spreading. "Minister Fudge, this is Harry Potter. Harry Potter, this is Minister Fudge, Minister of Magic."

Once again, the crowd perked at this enthusiastically.

"Harry Potter is here?"

"Someone says Harry Potter?"

"What a fantastic day!"

"Thank you!" Dumbledore said clumsily, trying to get up while his hands were still being cuffed.

"THANK YOU!" Harry Potter announced and gestured his hand toward a robot that stood outside the shop. "Now everyone, please look at the camera and say cheese!"

With a flash, Robot took a group photo and handed it out to everyone, including the astonished Fudge. The crowd cried happily while Harry used the chaos as an opportunity to escape. He grabbed Dumbledore's and McGonagall's hands and walked toward the direction Dumbledore had been going before the Chief Warlock was attacked.

"Dead end?" Harry looked at a brick wall, disappointed. "Diagon Alley?"

"What did you just do, Harry?" McGonagall asked, bewildered.

"He is very capable of casting wandless Confundus Charm. He just didn't realise it." Dumbledore beamed. He wandlessly uncuffed himself, pulled out a wand, and tapped three times on the wall.

-oOoOo-

As soon as they arrived at the other side of the way, McGonagall's wand tapped Harry's forehead. "This should hide your scar," she said with amusement, "to neutralise your Trouble Magnet charm."

Harry jumped, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Don't do that again, will you? Not without asking me first!"

McGonagall's face saddened. "You have my words, Mr. Potter. But what inspires such a deep mistrust in adults?"

Harry crossed his arms, "I trust evidence, methodology, full disclosure and informed consent! Do you know what informed consent is, Deputy Headmistress?"

McGonagall shook her head.

"It is ethically imperative that you need to obtain your client's consent before carrying out an intervention on him. Is that understood?"

Dumbledore smiled, watching Harry with genuine interest.

McGonagall nodded to Harry, a little annoyed that Dumbledore had done very little to make this shopping trip easier. "Are you very capable of casting wandless Cheering Charm too, Mr. Potter?"

Harry was fuming. "Yes! Yes! And I am very capable of casting wandless Annoying Charm too!"

"Were you trying to say that we are annoying?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"No, I was trying to say that everything that happened around me was not necessarily caused by me. My presence _alone_ may or may not have altered the outcomes." Harry explained impatiently.

And they walked together in silence, passing various shops and advertisements, until they stopped before a huge white building with gigantic bronze doors.

"Harry, this... is Gringotts Bank." Dumbledore smiled.

"I can read. Thank you very much."

-oOoOo-

To be continued.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

-oOoOo-

Harry closed the door as soon as he opened it. "Back to the lab, now! There is probably a new virus outbreak that makes people have sharp teeth and pointy ears!"

Dumbledore and McGonagall exchanged glances and, after a while, burst out a joyous laughter simultaneously. It was a happy, childish laugh they hadn't had for a long time.

"They.. are.." Dumbledore said between laughs. "They are goblins, Harry."

Harry raised his blow, annoyed. "Haemoglobins?"

"Did you just say homo goblins?" McGonagall wiped tears from her eyes.

"Are they related to homo sapiens?" Dumbledore asked.

A goblin opened the door to investigate what the hell was going on outside. It was so noisy and annoying that the goblins of Gringotts decide to send one to put a stop to it. But as the goblin saw a prominent figure like Dumbledore, he needed to approach this delicately. "Greetings, Chief Warlock." The goblin bowed deeply. "If you seek the services of Gringotts today, I am afraid to have to state that acoustic turbulence is not one of our working currencies."

"Greetings, Griphook." Dumbledore tried his best to contain the laughter inside him. "I apologise for..."

"Wow!" Harry interrupted rudely, circling Griphook with an eyeing scientific interest. "This is the first time I see a homo goblin!"

Griphook grinned, his sharp teeth flashing a light. "Gringotts welcome all clients with heavy pockets, be they Death Eaters, lemon drop lovers or homophobes. Indeed we are happy to arrange a session for you to insult homosexuals for a price."

Harry was impressed. "Wouldn't they be offended?"

Griphook looked as though Harry asked a very odd question. "I'm sorry. How could too much money offend anyone?" Seeing that concern does not fall off the young boy's face, Griphook re-assured, handing each of them a brochure he retrieved from his pocket. "Do not worry, sir. They are professional actors trained to be insulted."

McGonagall studied the brochure with interest. She had never heard of this service before. The brochure said there were Pureblood clients, insulting Mudbloods in a safe and secure environment without having to face the risk of being sued for libels. There was also a special service for Hogwarts professors to practice insulting students AND VICE VERSA. "May I ask who trained the actors?"

Griphook's eyes were gleaming. "Business secrets may be revealed, for a price. Would 200 galleons sound acceptable to you, Professor?"

McGonagall winced at the price. "Thank you for the quote, Griphook. I shall think about it."

"Can we come in, now?" Harry asked impatiently.

"Ahh.." Dumbledore clapped his hands. "I believe an introduction is in order. Griphook, this is Harry Potter. Harry Potter, this is..."

"I know he's Griphook, Albie! I'm not deaf. Thank you very much!"

-oOoOo-

"Let me get this straight. Are you telling me that you have no ATMs. No debit cards. No credit cards. No cheques. No Internet banking. No call centre. What sort of bank are you?"

"Magic." Griphook said.

McGonagall saw Harry pick up a Galleon and look at it intently. Harry tapped his glasses a few times. "Before your evil thoughts take over, Mr. Potter, wizard gold is made of real gold but is charmed to be Muggle-repellent. There is no way to convert it to a Muggle currency."

Harry sniggered. "Surely I can use it to buy food or something and then sell the food to a Muggle market?"

McGonagall opened her mouth, no words coming out, and then closed it. Griphook looked thoughtful, while Dumbledore looked... hungry.

Suddenly, Robot appeared out of nowhere in the Potters' Vault. "Thank you for lending me the Cloak of Invisibility, Master."

"Merlin's beard!" Dumbledore muttered.

"Chief Warlock, may I draw your attention to the fact that Merlin knew how to groom and trim his beard?" Griphook retrieved a brochure from his pocket and gave it to Dumbledore. "Gringotts's next male grooming course opens next week, but there are only a few places left. If you miss this chance, you may have to wait until next year, because our instructor, Lord Malfoy, certainly is a busy person!"

"Thank you Griphook." Dumbledore bit his bottom lip. He really wanted to say something, but it would be unwise.

However, Harry cared no less. "Homo goblin, did it not concern you that my Robot has just bypassed Gringotts's security system?"

"My compensation is a function of sales referrals and vault retaining fees. Gringotts's security does not concern me. However -" Griphook smirked. "for a small fraction of your stunning wealth, Mr. Potter, you can keep me silent so that my colleagues have no knowledge of this incident. Does that sound acceptable to you?"

Harry tripped over a Sickle.

"I took the nod as a yes then." Griphook smiled widely, helping Harry up to his feet.

Golden light glowed when their hands touched, and about half of Harry's wealth disappeared before their very eyes.

-oOoOo-

McGonagall confronted Dumbledore as soon as they left Gringotts, her face seriously, seriously unhappy. "An Obliterate _was_ in order, don't you think?"

Harry followed them quietly, taking in the sight of shops and people that he didn't catalogue in his memory properly on the way to Gringotts. He wondered how much it cost to establish a shop in Diagon Alley and whether there were other commercial venues worth considering.

"That would be unnecessary, Cat-woman. Our Harry needs only little time to replenish his wealth."

Harry perked up at this. How did Dumbledore know?

"Undoubtedly, the procedure involves a remote controller, a Time Tuner and a Superman costume."

Harry wondered how many times Dumbledore also did the same thing. If someone could send information to their past self, lotto would be one of the fastest ways to build wealth. And damn, the fact that he didn't bother when half of his wealth vanished was also a clue. No, the biggest reason he wouldn't do anything to the trickster was that he saw Griphook as a potential business partner.

"WHAT?" McGonagall squeaked.

"But still, this does not change the fact that Griphook's Occlumency skill is formidable. It would be unwise to attempt to Obliterate him."

Harry heard the sound of jingling Galleons that his invisibility-cloaked Robot carried.

Robot was walking besides him quietly, sending him Google search results on Obliterate and Occlumency. The search results were displayed on Harry's glasses screen: 'Your search did not match any documents.'

Harry frowned slightly. He had specifically asked Dudley to build in an auto-search function for terms that are not in the Oxford English Dictionary. Although chances were that Wizard terms would not be found in Google, it was worth a try.

"But who could have taught him Occlumancy, Albus?" McGonagall looked puzzled. "We would not have won the Wizard-Goblin war easily if they had mastered the art."

"For a price, Minerva, I believe Griphook can tell you, perhaps as much as the price for them to acquire the art in the first place."

Finally their walking came to a halt. This was their second stop at Diagon Alley.

"Ah here we are, Harry," McGonagall smiled, "this is a time to remember. A time when you become a full wizard."

"Please read, Harry," Dumbledore beamed, pointing at the shop's sign. "I know you can read."

"Ollivanders?" Harry sniffed a couple of times. "Sounds like a luxury perfume brand, but the shop looks like a cheap brothel."

-oOoOo-

"Mr. Ollivander, with due respect, do you have a better algorithm than 'trial and error'?" Harry asked after waving his fifth wand.

"Be patient, Mr. Potter. A wand chooses a wizard. Thus, we must try one by one."

Harry dropped the wand he was carrying in awe, shocked. Then he gingerly and tenderly picked it up and handed it back to the wandmaker. "Sincere apologies, Wand. Are you hurt?"

Dumbledore and McGonagall exchanged worried glances but said nothing.

Harry was reluctant to ask. "Are you sure, Mr. Ollivander, that wands _are_ sentient?"

Ollivander considered this. "Wands have allegiance, Mr. Potter, and they can switch allegiance."

Harry went silent for a long ten seconds, tumult agitating him from within. But when he spoke, his voice was steady with a charisma of John F Kennedy, his face determined. "Sorry, Mr. Ollivander, but I did not sign up to enslave a wand to my will. I do not require a wand, and I will fight for the rights and liberty of Wandom!"

"Mr. Potter!" McGonagall remarked warningly. "A wizard _needs_ a wand, or you will not be able to cast spells. Granted, certain spells may be cast wandlessly, but you need to master them with a wand first. Besides, a wand is required do Transfiguration, Charms and Defence Against Dark Arts. It is not only central to your education, but also to your personal safety and future career!"

"Minnie, I have been called a wizard for one reason: I am a scientific genius. I am sure I can devise Muggle alternatives to master anything that wands can do. I will not fail you. Do you trust me?"

When Harry phrased it like that, McGonagall's face softened.

Dumbledore looked extraordinarily cheerful, his smile wide from cheek to cheek. "If the incident at Gringotts was any indicator, he has demonstrated a feat that even I, with a wand, cannot yet achieve. So I trust that our Harry here can, with little or no struggle, overcome the problem of attending Hogwarts without a wand."

"No kidding." Ollivander's young secret wife emerged from under the counter, licking her upper lip.

-oOoOo-

To be continued.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

-oOoOo-

"Ma'am, what is summer fashion like this year?"

"Mr. Potter, what do you mean by fashion?"

"Ma'am, is your shop the only robemaker in Magical Britain?"

"Mr. Potter, yes, I think so."

"Ma'am, do you need a license to be a robemaker?"

"No, I don't, Mr. Potter. May I ask why you asked me all these questions?"

"Then, your business must not be very profitable." Harry concluded, nodding with satisfaction.

Madam Malkin stopped her wand movements, staring at the Boy-Who-Concluded with wide eyes.

Harry continued his questioning as if nothing had happened. "So do you intentionally set the prices so low that your potential competitors wouldn't enter the market, or is there a law governing your price setting?"

Madam Malkin sank to her knees and began to sob. That was when McGonagall returned from the shop's restroom. "What did you do to her, Mr. Potter?"

Harry froze in place. "I...I.."

Madam Malkin got up, wiping tears from her eyes with her handkerchief. "Apologies, Mr. Potter. I didn't intend to get you into trouble. It is just that my debts have been piling up for years, and I have no idea what goes wrong. I think this business does well, with constant customer traffic and reasonable prices, yet I am losing money mysteriously!"

McGonagall said kindly, resting a hand on Malkin's shoulder. "Is there anything I can do?"

Madam Malkin shook her head in resignation.

Harry said grimly. "Ma'am, I may be able offer you a quick business diagnosis if I can see your financial statements."

"What are financial statements?"

Harry looked genuinely surprised. "Don't tell me you don't separate your business money pocket from your personal money pocket... or don't keep records of sales, purchases, inventory, payroll, and so on."

Madam Malkin was stunned for a few seconds. "That... makes sense, but it would give me a lot of trouble to go through all that."

With a sigh, Harry gave Madam Malkin a brief introduction to the accounting double-entry system, an overview of internal controls and auditing, the benefits of outsourcing non-core business activities, and some key business tools such as demand forecasting and tax planning. McGonagall listened with awe, while Madam Malkin tried to get as much as possible from this valuable lesson, taking notes like students in a lecture, although she didn't understand half of it.

"Ma'am," Harry smiled his best charming smile. "I should like to offer you a proposition. Make me a business partner, and I will turn around your business with strategy, finance and marketing while you offer customer services and actual robemaking. What would you say? I have an experience running a multi-million-pound enterprise already, so this business should not be much of a challenge."

Madam Malkin stuttered. "I.. I didn't expect t-this."

Harry pushed a little more. "Would 10,000 galleons suffice to acquire half the stake in your business, Madam?"

For the first time in her life, Madam Malkin hugged a customer and sobbed in his arms.

Harry felt like this was the moment to say something as a co-president. He wished there were a podium and microphone for this monumental occasion. "From today on, this shop shall be known as Malkin and Potter's or M&P for short. We will mass-produce ready-to-wear clothes that are charmed to fit the wearer's body. We will expand our businesses oversea. We will make our brand cool and our clothes something that our customers do not only love to wear but also think they cannot live without. Clothing will represent part of their identities, lifestyles and freedom of expression."

Malkin and McGonagall gave Harry a sincere applause, impressed. The applause was also joined by a blonde-haired cool-looking boy who had just walked out of the changing room located deep inside the shop.

"Greetings, Mr. Potter. May I introduce myself as Draco of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy? I believe we haven't met, although I'm certain of our fruitful cooperation should we join forces."

Draco offered a firm handshake, which Harry accepted in a professional business-like manner.

"You have to excuse my seeming ignorance. I was raised in a Muggle environment, and just three days ago was the day I discovered my magical heritage. So I do not yet fully comprehend the extent to which our cooperation could entail or what other alternatives have to offer." Harry spoke easily, which basically meant that Draco needed to try harder to convince him that Draco was worthy to be Harry's business partner.

Draco smiled warmly. "Maybe this is an opportune time to mention some trivia about the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy. Should Gringotts speak of their most significant patronage, or the Ministry speak of their most influential political momentums, or the residents of Magical Britain speak of their largest suppliers of goods and services, our name should easily come up at the top."

Harry nodded, taking notes of what Draco said to be verified later. "I heard that Lord Malfoy himself was a teacher on male grooming. I suspect this is merely a small piece of the big picture that represents the commercial interests of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Malfoy. I wonder what other pieces are like."

"I'm sorry to have to interrupt your impromptu business meeting, Mr. Potter, Mr. Malfoy." McGonagall said, amusement in her eyes. She had not seen any 11-year-olds like these two. "But we are on an errand against the flow of time. Mr Potter must hasten to achieve the goal of school supply shopping by the end of day."

"Very well, nice to meet you, Mr. Potter. I believe we will have a chance to continue this discussion at Hogwarts. Since we are both first years -" Malfoy paused but continued when Harry didn't deny "- we will share some, if not all, classes."

"The pleasure is mine, Mr. Malfoy."

Once Draco left the establishment, Madam Malkin continued her measurement magic on Harry, her mind set on giving Harry the best robe she had ever made and repaying all her loans after the close of business.

"Ma'am," Harry asked, noting the luxuriance of Draco's robe material. "If I asked you to classify magical people into segments based on their purchasing power and clothing preferences, what would you say?"

-oOoOo-

McGonagall and Harry met Dumbledore at a small cafe. Dumbledore went there first because he was hungry and did not really fancy clothes shopping.

"I used Wizard money to buy some food. Now I wonder if our next step should be eating the food or selling the food to a Muggle market." Dumbledore grinned.

Harry consulted the school shopping list. "We still need to buy a potions kit and school books. Um, Albie, doesn't everyone have to acquire the same potions kit and same set of school books?"

Dumbledore's mouth was occupied by a chicken drumstick, so it was McGonagall who gave Harry an answer. "Yes they do, Mr. Potter. What are you trying to get at?"

Harry scratched his head. "Since Hogwarts monopolises Britain's education industry –" McGonagall raised her brow at Harry's choice of words. "– and therefore has considerable negotiation power, why doesn't Hogwarts negotiate a deal with these potion-making and publishing businesses or perhaps purchase in large quantities so as to pass on bulk discounts to students?"

McGonagall raised her other brow. "If I understand your business principles correctly, this is counted as Hogwarts's non-core business activity. So asking a school staff member to do it would not be appropriate, but I do not think hiring an external agent to handle this task would be economically worthwhile."

"Why is that so, Minnie?"

McGonagall used to hate this nick name, but after a while she thought it was a cute name suitable for her new young face. "Mr. Potter, there are strict and ridiculously detailed Ministerial Regulations on the supply of potions. And nobody could do much on books, as all bookstores in Britain agree to sell at suggested retail prices, regardless of the quantity you would like to purchase."

"And that is a lawful thing to do?"

McGonagall looked amused. "Of course, it is, Mr. Potter. Is there a reason why it should not be?"

Dumbledore spat a chicken bone from his mouth to a dartboard and raised his hand. "I know this! It is called 'price fixing' in the Muggle World, which is anti-competitive and illegal."

Harry nodded grimly, but was brightened by the arrival of the invisible Robot, whom he could see because his special glasses could tell Robot's location.

Robot sneaked up behind McGonagall, almost giving the witch a heart attack. "May I suggest," Robot whispered, "that we have the potions kit and schoolbooks owl-posted to Mr. Potter's new address at Hogwarts? I managed to snatch their brochures while sightseeing and VDO-recording everything."

Harry nodded and turned his face toward the two adults. "Professors, are the bookstore and potionmaker's store worth visiting? In other words, is there any book in the bookstore that the Hogwarts Library doesn't have, or any equipment in the potionmaker's store that the Hogwarts potions lab doesn't have?"

McGonagall looked expectantly at Dumbledore, who shook his head while spitting another chicken bone to a dartboard. Harry was very, very impressed to see that all the bones he spat hit the bulleye.

"Professors, I think I have everything I need for school. Can we return to Hogwarts now?"

McGonagall smiled. "You may have missed the last line on the school supply list, Mr. Potter. At Hogwarts, students are allowed a small pet to keep as long as the pet does not pose health risks to fellow students."

"No thank you, Minnie. I prefer to have human pets, a.k.a. minions."

The temperature of McGonagall's spine went down 10 degrees when she heard that. A desire to have minions was a sign of an ambition to be a Dark Lord. "Mr. Potter, you objected to the idea of enslaving wands, yet you wish to have human pets?"

Harry chuckled heartily. "You know, Albie once said, _Fawkes proves to be more than just a pet. He is a friend._ I hope the humans I will meet at Hogwarts are better than Fawkes!"

This sounded all wrong – seeing fellow humans as pets and comparing them to a creature, but McGonagall didn't know what to say.

Dumbledore rubbed his temples thrice, and his stomach once.

Fawkes suddenly appeared on Dumbledore's shoulder, alternating between looking at Dumbledore accusingly and looking at the dartboard. He narrowed his eyes and didn't look very friendly.

"Ok, okay, buddy." Dumbledore let out a long, tiring sigh. "I eat chicken again. But how many times do I have to say that chicken are not birds?"

Fawkes took no time to play Angry Bird again. Dumbledore was the first to leave the cafe, running for dear life, followed closely by a furious Fawkes, an amused Cat-woman, the Boy-Who-Laughed, and an invisible You-Know-What.

Life was certainly interesting around these crazy people. Harry couldn't wait for the school term to start.

-oOoOo-

To be continued.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

-oOoOo-

Never before in Hagrid's miserable life had women had a romantic interest in him. They had not even looked at him that way. He had been big, loud and blatant, with social skills of an uncultured but kind-spirited animal. So very few people had looked at him beyond appearance and manners and saw the bottom of his heart, a heart of gold.

Hagrid had spent hours baking, burning and re-baking a birthday cake for Harry Potter's 11th birthday. Actually he did this every year but never got it right the first time. Nor was he allowed to visit Harry to deliver a birthday cake. Dumbledore just said no, and that was enough. Hagrid did not need to know the reasons behind the Headmaster's decision. He trusted Dumbledore with his life.

So when Dumbledore asked him to visit Harry and present the Hogwarts letter, Hagrid was ecstatic. He washed his clothes with dragon mucus, bathed himself in unicorn urine and combed his hair with a school broom to make himself presentable (he never brushed his teeth). So when Harry refused to accept Hagrid's birthday cake, it broke his heart.

Badly.

Although Harry kindly mentioned that he considered accepting the gift and throwing it away later, he didn't want the cake to go to waste since associated carbon footprint with baking cake was considerable (Hagrid thought carbon must be a big creature deep inside the Forbidden Forest). Harry said Hagrid was a drama queen for being a half-giant working for a magical school. Hagrid was downhearted, having no idea what to do to get on Harry's good side. So when Harry made the ultimatum that Hagrid either followed the boy to his lab or left. It was not a difficult decision for him to make. He quietly followed the boy to the laboratory, where a procedure that Harry thought could cure a sickness was explained to Hagrid in a language he barely understood.

Hagrid did not try to understand anything either. He signed a form without reading because he trusted Harry, not knowing that his life would never be the same again.

Well, he was _still_ the blatant, uncultured Hagrid, but that weakness was forgivable when you looked like Andrew Garfield and had the angelic voice of Andrea Bocelli.

So when Hagrid was left alone with Tom the barman, a flock of witches surrounded him like tigresses fighting for a chance to taste a handsome, young-looking stag (they didn't dare doing slutty anything in the presence of the stern McGonagall). Hagrid was shocked, happy and frightened at the same time. He had received a lot of Floo station names (Muggle equivalent of phone numbers). He also received his first kiss there. A girl named Lavender Brown threw herself onto him and pressed her lips against his in a quick, swift motion. But only because Hagrid never brushed his teeth, the poor girl coughed and rushed to the loo, searching her handbag and murmuring 'where's my mouthwash?' as she ran, but Hagrid didn't hear that. Hagrid thought a sense of feminine modesty had just returned to her.

But not twenty other girls before him.

Luckily a girl by the name of Pansy Parkinson who ran her hand all over him accidentally clicked the stun pen in his shirt pocket. As a result, a stun gas erupted. Hagrid held his breath and ran out of the bar as soon as possible, leaving the barman and his clientele in the dreamland.

So when Lavender Brown came back from the toilet, she was in her weird panic mode. "Wow! If there is anything in the world more deadly than the Dementor's Kiss, that would be Hagrid's Kiss of Death! But – " she blushed a little. "- it is kind of kiss worth dying for."

-oOoOo-

Pansy Parkinson was very, very, very furious. When she woke up, Hagrid was gone. So was that slutty Lavender Brown! The bitch didn't only steal her future husband but also taint the honour of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Parkinson! Pansy always got what she wanted, and whatever that came between her and the thing she wanted had to be eliminated. The girl growled painfully, her forehead bleeding from hitting the floor. Her precious pureblood was unnecessarily wasted, and this was a crime of highest degree!

-oOoOo-

Harry literally rolled on the floor laughing when seeing lipstick kisses all over Hagrid, who sat dejectedly on a stool in Harry's underground lab.

"I always wanted to be accepted. But I never wanted this, Harry! This is too much for me."

"Chill, Hagrid. Minnie knows exactly how to stare people the right way. Maybe you can learn from her."

"But Harry..."

Harry sighed. "Alright, I can change the way you look, but I will not change the person you are, Hagrid. Let me give you some disguise tips and hire bodyguards for you. After all, I do that all the time as a Muggle celebrity." What Harry didn't say was that when Hagrid was less approachable, this would make him even more desirable.

Dudley was slicing onions quietly and rubbed the onions against Fawkes's cheek. The phoenix then sat on Hagrid's head, shredding tears to soothe the former half-giant.

"That was not I was trying to say, Harry. I-I..." Hagrid's hand was trembling, handing a newspaper to Harry, who raised a brow. A big headline said:

**_Girl sent to Azkaban for attempted murder_**

"Let me guess. The girl in Azkaban -" which Harry guessed was some sort of magical prison "- was fighting with the girl accusing her of attempted murder because of you?"

Hagrid covered his face with both hands, sobbing melodiously with his Andrea Bocelli voice. "It's not even close to a murder, Harry. It was your stun pen firing off when Parkinson touched me."

Harry had heard enough. He got up and read the newspaper article with a dark, serious face, a side of Harry that Hagrid hadn't seen before. A couple of minutes later, Harry looked up from the newspaper, said to Hagrid with a voice colder than liquid nitrogen. "Escort me to the Ministry of Magic, will you?"

-oOoOo-

"Um, good morning?"

The reception lady at the Ministry of Magic looked at Harry with a bored face. It was just a quick glance, no longer than half a second. "What do you want?" Her eyes then returned to a Japanese manga she had been reading.

Although not pleased with the lady's manner, Harry chose to be polite. He needed cooperation, not a fight. "My name is Harry Potter, and I would like to meet the Minister, please."

"Harry Potter?" The lady was so excited that she fell off her chair. When she got up, she smiled sheepishly. "What a pleasure to –"

She had not finished the sentence when the crowd perked up.

"Harry Potter is here?"

"Wow, mate, work has never been more exciting!"

"Yes! Should I expect an autograph?"

"Listen, everyone," Harry intoned, "I wish I could see the Minister of Magic at work. So who would like to show me the way?"

The crowd was more than enthusiastic to do so.

-oOoOo-

"But, Mr. Potter, the Minister is having an important meeting right now. He will see you shortly. May I suggest that you please enjoy our refreshments for the time being?"

Harry tapped his glasses twice, and with a gloomy face, he pushed the Minister's office door open and entered, followed closely by Hagrid and an invisible Robot. They were reluctantly followed by the Minister's secretary.

"Ahh.. Mr. Potter," Fudge gave him an annoyed look. "you have just interrupted my important floo call with the French minister. I'm sure whatever you have to say can wait, so please leave, now."

Harry didn't even flinch one bit. "I can tell a liar when I see one, Minister."

Fudge looked surprised. "There has to be some sort of misunderstanding, but that can wait too."

Harry walked up to Fudge, and the secretary said warningly, pointing her wand at the Boy-Who-Lived. "Mr. Potter, one step closer and I will no longer show mercy."

Harry shrugged. He was close enough anyway. His fist hit Fudge's desk forcefully, twice. "Get out, now!"

It was the face of the girl that Harry saw in the paper: Lavender Brown, and she was crying silently like there was no tomorrow. Harry bet that there was some sort of magic that prevented her from making noises. She looked really miserable, tears pouring from her eyes like a stream. Her lips were bruised and her hair was messy.

Fudge stepped back, his mind rushing to find a damage control solution. "But how - how did you know?"

Harry smirked, not intending to explain to the Minister what infrared technology is.

"So Miss Brown didn't go to Azkaban so that you can keep her all to yourself? You, Minister of Magic, who accused Dumbledore of being a paedophile with a bad joke as evidence?"

"I.. I..." Fudge's tongue seemed to be tied, but not for long. "That was a prank! I didn't mean Dumbledore any harm. It was just harmless fun, and Dumbledore knew it!"

Harry nodded with an evil smile. "Okay, if that were harmless fun, then how would you explain what I see today?"

Suddenly there was a flaming flash, and Dumbledore appeared in the room with Fawkes on his shoulder. Harry grimaced. Somehow Fawkes told everything to the Headmaster. He didn't count on the fact that Fawkes could communicate. Or maybe Hogwarts knew when he left the castle. Or maybe Dumbledore put a tracking spell on him.

"This must also be a prank." Fudge protested hotly. "Someone must have impersonated Miss Brown and hid under my desk! Look! You all have no business here. Now can you all please get out of my room so this matter can be dealt with?" Fudge said with the frustration of an innocent wrongly accused. Harry believed this Minister could easily get a Grammy Award for the Best Bullshitter and Actor.

Harry looked at the secretary expectantly. "You must have the knowledge of who enters and leaves the Minister's Office. So if this is not Miss Brown, who is she?"

The secretary gave Fudge a worried glance. She opened her mouth and then closed it.

"May I suggest that I un-silent the girl so that she can talk?" Dumbledore offered.

With the stress going on, the room was getting more heated, and as such Hagrid took off the hood that had half-hidden his gorgeous face.

"No need!" The secretary's eyes never left Hagrid's since he took off the hood. "I will tell you anything! Anything!" The secretary moved closer to Hagrid like a snake creeping to its prey.

And the secretary told them of the Parkinsons' grudge against Lavender, the bribe that the Parkinsons gave the Minister, the ransom that the Minister demanded from the Browns so that a fake Lavender be sent to Azkaban instead, the plea from Miss Brown's parents as they didn't have the money that the Minister asked, and most importantly, Fudge's paedophilia.

As the secretary retold the story, Fudge sunk into his chair, looking desperate and very afraid.

"Excuse me, Ma'am," Harry asked as soon as the secretary finished her story, "are you telling me that an 11-year-old girl was sent to a wizard prison that drains happiness out of prioners' lives, and this was done without a trial?"

"Yes, Mr. Potter." She replied without looking at the Boy-Who-Lived. Her arms swung around Hagrid's neck. Hagrid didn't like it, but he stood there, petrified, not knowing what to do.

Harry sweated, because he didn't expect a slut to save the day. Even worse, he didn't expect that Hagrid's handsome face was a more powerful political force than his presence. "I have a feeling that she was not the first person that was forced to go to prison without a trial."

The secretary wrapped her legs around Hagrid's. "Of course not, Mr. Potter." She managed to still keep her voice steady despite her lusty eyes. "There are many others before her, the most notably was probably Sirius Black, your godfather."

Harry took three steps back before finding his voice again. "WHAT?"

-oOoOo-

To be continued.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

-oOoOo-

"I have a feeling that she was not the first person that was forced to go to prison without a trial."

The secretary wrapped her legs around Hagrid's. "Of course not, Mr. Potter." She managed to still keep her voice steady despite her lusty eyes. "There are many others before her, the most notably was probably Sirius Black, your godfather."

"WHAT?"

Harry turned sharply toward Dumbledore and gave him a 'you'd better explain this' kind of look.

Dumbledore looked at him sadly. "Harry.."

"Don't try to Obliviate me either!" Robot had spent a couple of hours in Hogwarts Library to find out what Obliviate was. Unbeknownst to Dumbledore, every page that Robot had taken a look had been recorded, digitised and indexed for later searches. It was like Harry was creating Google Books and Google Search for the school library, and by Harry's estimate, he would have the whole library in his server in a week.

The secretary's eyes were gleaming, at Hagrid's groin area. "Do you know a preventive or counter-measure to Obliviation, Mr. Potter?"

Harry almost chuckled. If Obliteration could be prevented or reversed, raping someone would be a lot riskier. Occlumancy was one way to prevent Obliviation, but this art was difficult to master, and even more difficult to maintain when unaware or in serious danger. "Ma'am, I do not intend to reveal the measures taken, or to be taken, since the revelation would weaken my security."

With a sighed, Dumbledore warned in a worried grandfatherly tone. "Harry.. the truth could be dangerous and should not be taken lightly. This truth in particular could rid you of happy childhood. Are you sure you would still like to hear it?"

Harry snorted. "I've never had an ordinary childhood anyway. I have businesses to run, research to do. So are you going to tell me, or do I need to make enquiries around?"

"Very well," Dumbledore said, "since this is public knowledge..."

Harry rolled his eyes. Okay, very good. So everyone but him in Magical Britain knew.

So the Headmaster told him of Lord Voldemort, of the night his parents died, of Sirius Black being the Potters' Secret-Keeper, of his murder of Peter Pettrigrew and twelve Muggles.

Harry listened intently without interrupting Dumbledore at all. The secretary enjoyed running her hands and legs all over Hagrid, who stood stiffly. There was also a certain stiffness beneath the fabrics of Hagrid's trousers. Fawkes, on the other hand, gave the Minister a haircut with his beak, durian style. Fudge was so scared of what this event could lead that he pee'd his pants.

"Thank you for the story, Headmaster. Now, Minister Fudge, answer me, how did the Ministry know that Mr. Black was indeed my parents' Secret-Keeper?"

"Ga-ga-ooh-la-la" Fudge didn't seem to be able to form a sensible answer.

"Harry, " Dumbledore explained. "Minister Fudge was not Minister of Magic at the time. He probably didn't go through the documents of cases before his term. But I can tell you this: your parents and Mr. Black himself admitted that Mr. Black was their Secret-Keeper, and they were not imposters or memory-charmed when they told me."

"Is it a public knowledge that Mr. Black was my parents' Secret-Keeper?"

"No, Harry," Dumbledore paused. "But it should be obvious to anyone that Mr. Black received the confidence of the Potters. After all, he was their best friend."

Harry crossed his arm. "Maybe they tried to be wise? Like secretly reassigning Mr. Pettigrew to be their Secret-Keeper, with Mr. Black as a decoy?"

"That..." Dumbledore worded carefully, "was a mere speculation, Harry, although it was a possibility."

"Honestly, why weren't people a bit smarter? If there is a box that can be opened only using a certain key, I would keep that key inside the box. So if Fidelius can really hide a house with its secret kept by the Secret-Keeper, the Secret-Keeper should also live in that house! And maybe, for a good measure, Obliviate the Secret-Keeper and everyone who knows or can make a guess as to who the Secret-Keeper is."

At this point, Jarvis displayed a text on Harry's glasses. "Off-topic, Master," which Harry acknowledged. "Okay, so now, we are dealing with possibilities rather than facts. Got that. What about the murder of Mr. Pettigrew and twelve Muggles? Have you considered other possibilities besides Mr. Black was the killer?"

Everyone went silent. Of course, except the secretary, who moaned softly, and Fawkes, who bit Fudge's hair here and there.

"I mean..." Harry clarified, "is there evidence to conclude that Mr. Pettigrew, or any of the twelve Muggles, or someone else, was _not_ the killer, and that it was _not_ an accident?"

The teary girl, who had hidden under Fudge's desk earlier, cried out loud. It seemed that whatever charm that kept her silent had worn off.

"No, there isn't! Just like my case!" the girl shouted.

Almost everyone had forgotten that she existed.

"Fortunately, there is." Harry said, and everyone turned to him. But at the same time, the secretary fired off the stun pen while rubbing Hagrid's chest. The stun smoke diffused as Dumbledore cast Bubble-head Charm on everyone.

He forgot Fawkes.

So the bird fell to the floor with a heavy _thud_, snoring loudly... as if in a deep sleep.

Dumbledore grimaced but this ought to make a point. "As you can see here -"

Harry interrupted the Headmaster and offered his version of the 'truth'. "- the charm of Rubeus Hagrid's beauty can make people fall into a dreamlike state upon extensive exposure." But somehow, nobody paid him much attention.

The secretary giggled, whispering into Hagrid's ear. "I'll call you the Desirable Number One."

"Miss Brown?" The girl nodded at Dumbledore's mention. "Who did this to you?"

She pointed her finger at Fudge, with undiluted hatred and disgust on her face. Fudge looked horrified, and to everyone's surprise, he cried out loud like a baby.

-oOoOo-

Two hours ago...

"I'm just wondering... if Oblivation can delete memories and what the evil spirit did to Quirrell can transfer consciousness, then it is possible to alter or relive memories, right?" Harry was playing chess against himself in his underground lab, while Dudley was acting as a referee just in case any side was cheating.

"You're correct, Master." Jarvis replied. "So far Robot has scanned 120 out of 173 books on memory charms. We have a pretty good idea of how to delete, alter or relive memories, but we have yet to learn how the evil spirit did what it did to Quirrell."

Harry kicked the Black Knight's head with the White Queen, and for that Dudley gave him a yellow card. "Tell me more about reliving memories. Should that be able to serve as evidence in magical courts?"

"In theory, yes, Master. There is a rare and expensive apparatus called Pensieve that can display memories with vivid sounds and moving pictures to anyone, whether or not they participated in the memories themselves. There is a Pensieve here in Hogwarts and at least two in the Ministry. However, the Ministry's never bothered to use a Pensieve since politics and corruption prevail over justice anyway."

Harry grinned. "Check mate."

That was when Hagrid knocked the door, requesting entry. Watching Hagrid with lipstick kisses all over him, Harry fell off a chair and rolled on the floor laughing.

Dudley gave him a red card for laughing too loud.

-oOoOo-

Harry was amazed by this new cinema experience. Even the Muggle 3D technology couldn't match this. If he could upgrade a Pensieve, maybe he could give a new definition of role-playing games, where players could interact with anything in the Pensieve Universe, rather than being just a passive viewer.

Since Harry learnt about the Sirius Black's case, he regarded Dumbledore as incompetent in sensible matters, so he took charge in escorting the Minister to Azkaban himself. No, he was not going to put Fudge there without a trial first. That would be hypocritical of him. But he needed Fudge as a key to enter Azkaban and, with Dumbledore's help, extract certain memories from Sirius Black to further investigate his case.

Harry was surprised to learn that Dementors affected everyone but not him. With or without a Patronus, he did not feel depressed at all while in the prison. He, however, felt very empathetic toward the prisoners. Ridding someone of happiness was a very inhuman thing to do. It was even worse than what the American government did to prisoners of the Terrorism War. Yes, Harry believed killing was more merciful than reliving painful memories with tenfold the sadness, if not more. Harry himself suffered from nightmares about causing Quirrell's death. He wished he would not have to relive that every second of the remaining of his life!

So when he first met his godfather, he didn't dare meet his eyes or introduce himself. He was not sure he could control himself when seeing family in distress. The Dursleys had been mean to him until Harry won a scientific award and sizeable prize money, but still Harry loved them in a wicked way.

And now, with the truth coming out, Lavender Brown and Sirius Black were lift of all charges. Even better, Fudge made a decree begrudgingly that all cases without trial and all future cases would be reviewed according to the new standards of justice (evidence over politics). Somehow, Fudge himself was not subject to a trial since the secretary confessed that she made up the story about Fudge getting involved in the whole thing. It was her who made all arrangements and spent all the bribe money from the Parkinsons on gambling and lost. Harry suspected that Fudge held some power over the secretary that she willingly sacrificed her future to protect him.

The quest was not over yet, Harry noted, as Fudge could overturn this decree at any time. The Purebloods were not happy, especially the Parkinsons. And it was highly speculated among the general public that the Purebloods held some sort of power over Fudge...

But for now... the Browns were so happy that they told him they had no idea how to thank him, to which Harry replied casually that he wanted them to be happy, that was all. However, he asked Dudley to 'slip' to the Browns that Harry had been looking for a Pensieve (As it turned out, all the Pensieves at the Ministry had been stolen, and they had to borrow Hogwarts's Pensieve for use according to their new justice system. Pensieve was a rare artefact that money could not buy.) One day, Harry received a Pensieve from the Browns, delivered by Fawkes. He guessed the Browns had one as a family treasure, and it took them quite a thought to part this valuable item to their daughter's saviour. But Harry couldn't care less about the history of this particular Pensieve, now that he got it. Harry grinned from ear to ear. He knew exactly what to do with it.

-oOoOo-

Madam Malkin couldn't believe the sheer amount of traffics into her little shop. Harry had to impose an appointment system, and the soonest possible date to get an appointment with M&P was two months later. Two months!

In front of her shop, sculptures of Hagrid and McGonagall wore various, colourful summer robes. The sculptures were charmed to be animated, posing several sexy postures to the customers. Deep inside the shop, there was a Pensieve with a pink sign that said:

'Get dressed with Hagrid.'

-oOoOo-

A/N: ROFL!

'Get dressed with Hagrid' was basically a tutorial on how to take care of clothes. Only customers who had purchased something from M&P could book an appointment to receive this tutorial session with Hagrid. But still, it was proven very popular. ;)

Too serious? Too crazy? Too random? Too predictable? Please let me know!


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

-oOoOo-

Sirius Black blinked again. "I'm free to go?"

"Yes, you are, dear," An ex-Auror by the name of Moody winked seductively, "but if you change your mind, you can always come back." His face darkened. "But if you dare do anything naughty again, boy, I'll make goddamned sure you'll be back in a heartbeat. YOU HEAR ME?"

Sirius Black blinked again. This old, weird-looking guy really was moody. But if someone from the Order of Phoenix was here, chances were that Dumbledore was involved to make sure he was to leave Azkaban without complications.

As Sirius stepped out of his cell, a red carpet was laid before him, with disco light flashing and dancing on the corridor along the carpet line, and a very familiar lively song booming from everywhere in the prison.

_"Who let the dogs out?"_

Sirius couldn't resist. He loved the next line of the song, so he sang, "Woof, woof, woof, woof!"

Moody groaned. He needed a word with Dumbledore soon.

_"Who let the dogs out?"_

Not surprisingly, Moody chorused with Sirius with a smile of a boy enjoying his first ice-cream, "Woof, woof, woof, woof!"

He was indeed moody.

-oOoOo-

Harry Potter was a busy businessman. Besides running the Potter Enterprise, conducting scientific research, reading everything about the Wizard World, mentoring Madam Malkin and getting prepared to be a Hogwarts student, he needed to set aside a large chunk amount of time for pranks.

He had read about the First Wizarding War, and kinda hacked into Dumbledore's personal library to learn about the Order of Phoenix. He had built an ant-sized robot called Antony, which worked splendidly with 10-foot-tall Robot and his intelligent glasses Jarvis. Antony, Robot and Jarvis were three independent artificial intelligence machines, rather than a centrally controlled A.I. because digital communications were not reliable in the Wizard World and relying on a central command could make his machines dead when he needed them most. Harry didn't want to take this sort of risk.

Having said that, Harry thought a healthy amount of risk was okay. Antony could go anywhere in the Castle without trouble. He could fly, he could crawl up the wall, he could hung from the ceiling, he could record anything with a miniature video camera, and he could report back in real time, making him perfect for stealth, infiltrative missions. Antony learnt about a secret passage way inside the Headmaster's Office, which led to, among other things, Dumbledore's private library. He slipped himself inside Dumbledore's books between pages and scanned everything without opening the books. So Harry was fairly certain that Antony didn't trigger any anti-theft charm, if Dumbledore had any.

Harry had big plans for Antony, one of them being finding out what was stored inside Deatheaters' vaults at Gringotts. While Robot could get into Gringotts without any problem, he was unlikely to be able to go past a vault door without bombing it first. No, Harry couldn't set an alarm to the goblins like that. He needed to know first what was in the vaults before stealing them. This was way more entertaining than his time-travelled lotto victories.

Meanwhile, Harry was learning about Gringotts, Hogwarts and others. He didn't want to be surprised by unknown variables for which he could devise a preparation plan before hand. He wanted his missions to succeed and cost minimal damage. After all, his robots cost Harry a lot of money, time and red cards from Dudley, who suspected that Jarvis helped Harry in chess games more often than not, even in the games he played against himself.

So when Antony learnt about the Order of Phoenix, Harry promptly made a request to Dumbledore for having Moody to escort Sirius to safety (Moody was chosen for comical effects since the lad was so emotionally unstable). What he didn't mention was that he wore the Cloak of Invisibility and followed Moody into Azkaban. Antony did all the work of installing battery-powered disco lights and sitting on Sirius's head while playing music. Robot took care of the red carpet while borrowing Harry's Cloak of Invisibility and Time Tuner. Harry watched the whole scene with amusement and satisfaction. He was really, really tempted to sing along with Sirius, but he needed to remain silent because he also had other wicked, wicked plans.

Harry grinned devilishly, wondering what Sirius's face was like when he found out.

But not for long, his dream shattered. The whole prison was shaking violently, as if hit by an earthquake. Damn, this was probably a real earthquake!

Suddenly a white, blinding flash struck them. Harry, Sirius and Moody screamed and fell into a cold, dark, bottomless abyss.

-oOoOo-

"What the hell?" Sirius yelled. They continued to fall and fall without any sign of stopping.

Harry remarked with amusement. "Funny enough, we seem to fall at a constant speed, like there is no gravity here. So if this black hole does have a bottom or something, we wouldn't hit it with a force that could shatter our bones."

"Who are you, Boy?" Moody asked, irritated, although he could guess who the boy was. "I don't see you."

Harry rolled his eyes. "Of course, you don't see me, stupid, because it's dark in here."

Sirius gulped, tears gathering in his eyes. "H-Harry?"

Before Harry could say anything, they all hit some of mud with a splash.

"Welcome to King Cross version 0.4 beta!" A voice announced happily.

"J-James?" Sirius asked reluctantly, a number of emotions rushing through him – apology, friendship, happiness, sadness, and others. It was undoubtedly James Potter's voice.

"F-father?" Harry asked reluctantly, a number of emotions rushing through him – longing, happiness, sadness, and others.

"P-prat?" Moody asked reluctantly, a number of emotions rushing through him, but that was to be expected of Moody.

The bottom of the pit had no light, but 11-year-old James Potter was illuminating and floating around like a ghost.

"I am so proud of you Harry." James said kindly, with a tint of hoarseness in his voice.

"F-father, I-I.." Harry was speechless for a while, but then he narrowed his eyes, eyeing James suspiciously. "You look like me."

James chuckled. "No, it's YOU who look like me. You got your mother's eyes though."A thought suddenly came to James. "Ask McGonagall to teach you to change your eye colour. I believe you see the implications?" He winked at his son and smirked at Sirius.

Sirius looked horrified.

Moody looked bored, spitting mud from his mouth. "Son of the Mudblood, you'd better get us outta here!"

Nobody took offense from Moody because the guy was driven to emotional insanity by a number of Crucios. He had fought bravely and heroically in the First Wizarding War. Tolerance was the very least thing they could do for him.

James and Sirius exchanged knowing smirks. Each had just got a mud-related prank idea from Moody.

"Jarvis... where am I?" Harry whispered.

Jarvis said, "Three possibilities, Master. (a) Not on Earth, (b) Cannot connect to the GPS system, and (c) the GPS system was shut down."

Harry was not happy with the answer. "Are Robot and Antony here?"

"Robot is not but Antony is here, sir."

"Ask Antony to fly up and report back." Harry paused. "How far can he go without losing communication with us?"

"10 km, sir. By estimate, you had fallen for 2 minutes at the speed of 5 metre per second, so distance should not be a problem."

James asked reluctantly, a concern on his face. "Harry? Who are you talking to?"

"Father, it's a Muggle invention. You can't hear him but I can."

"Yes, I can see, your glasses are special. There are like books that turn pages automatically!"

Harry looked surprised. "You can see me, father? I haven't yet taken off the Cloak of Invisibility!"

Moody crossed his arm, his magical eyes spinning crazily. "What charm are you using, boy? For some weird reason, I can't look at you at all."

"This..." James sighed, "...is the reason we're here."

Sirius sniggered. "But where's here, Prongs? I bet you are not going to tell us?"

James chuckled a bit. With a sigh, he replied, "Already toldcha; this is King Cross version 0.4 beta."

Sirius looked horror-struck. "You are serious!" And after a second, he added. "But you're not Sirius!"

James ignored his best friend. "Harry, your Cloak of Invisibility is supposed to hide you from ANYTHING, even from Death himself. Moody, your Magical Eye of See-Through-Bras is supposed to allow you to see ANYTHING, even those that hide in the deepest corners of the dark."

"Are you saying," Harry said slowly, "that this is a paradox, like an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object?"

"Yes, Harry." James replied. "And a paradox like that could lead to all sorts of craziness in the world."

"That doesn't sound too bad." Sirius remarked.

Jarvis reported on Harry's glasses screen as a running text. "Mr. Potter, Antony cannot fly any higher. It was like he was walking on a never-ending staircase. Whenever he reaches the point you appeared in this place, he is teleported back to the bottom of the pit."

Harry nodded grimly. Teleportation was not a technology he could master yet, yet everyone seemed to be mocking him with all these technological advances.

"So we have two choices here. We need to decide whether we should allow Moody's Eye to see through Harry's Cloak. After the decision, you all can.." James said with a bit of sadness. "..go back to Azkaban."

"This is an easy decision, Prat," spat Moody, "An All-seeing Eye would destroy a stealth mission using the Cloak. But a Totally Invisible Cloak, charmed to be Unsummonable, would make the wearer far too dangerous if the Cloak is misused. I'm not accusing you anything, boy." Moody regarded Harry in a wrong direction. "But the Cloak can be stolen. A misused All-seeing Eye is not as bad."

Sirius was surprised to see Moody in a rational mind. But he naturally wanted to side with his God-son. "Let's take a vote on this! And can you take off your Cloak please, Harry? I really want to see your not-so-handsome face so badly!"

Harry giggled. Voting sounded fair unless you were _already_ among your supporters. He cleared his throat before saying the words that he didn't want to say. It was difficult, but he had to do it. "Moody's right, Sirius."

These words seemed to hit Sirius in the right place. Sirius nodded with a rare, serious face, noting that his godson could be more mature than him sometimes.

"That's settled, then." James forced himself to smile. "I'm so happy to see you, Harry... "

"Father!" cried Harry.

"Until we meet again..."

And with that, a white, blinding flash hit three of them, returning them to Azkaban.

-oOoOo-

Antony promptly resumed the music. _"Who let the dogs out?"_

"Woof, woof, woof, woof!" Harry took off his Cloak and sang and danced happily with his godfather.

Sirius beamed at Harry and rushed to give the boy a warm embrace he'd never received.

Tears were gathering in Harry's eyes, and he believed his happy-teary eyes were more magical than any Magical Eye.

Walking on the red carpet, passing various cells and annoying songs without being a killjoy, the ex-Auror Alastor Moody escorted the ex-prisoner to 12 Grimmauld Place, and gave him back his wand. After all, the man deserved happiness, and Moody was impressed by the feats that the Potter boy had just achieved - following him to Azkaban without alerting him, setting up the prank without his knowledge, and giving up the Cloak's invisibility against his Magical Eye. He was so impressed that he forgot to act moody.

-oOoOo-

A/N: Did you know that the story has reached 12,000 words? If you'd like to say something about this story (I'd love to hear anything - even criticism), now is a good time! Thank you for reading!


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

-oOoOo-

As soon as Harry arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place, he asked Sirius if he could use a loo.

While waiting, Sirius inspected the house a bit, and asked Kreacher to prepare some tea and refreshments for them.

But Sirius waited and waited, for 20 minutes, so he decided to check up on Harry.

"Hello? My favourite godson?" Sirius shouted, chuckling at his own stupid joke, provided that he had only one godson.

But as Sirius heard yells and crashing noises, he put his wand out and sprinted to the loo.

The scene before him almost wetted his eyes, but at the same time it gave him a cold chill of fear and anger.

Not one, but two Harry Potters were fighting for a silver blade he knew belonged to Bellatrix Black. Both Harry's wore several cuts and bruises, soaked in blood. They were still trying to beat the hell out of one another when Sirius arrived.

"Sirius, help! He's an imposter trying to replace me!"

"Sirius, he's a liar! I can prove this – woof, woof, woof, woof!"

"What a bastard!" Harry gave the other Harry a punch in the mouth. "You almost ripped my mind and dared using the best memory in my life against me!?"

"That's MY memory you stole, dumbshit!" Harry returned the punch with a punch of equal force.

"Bitch, you're just jealous that I saw my father while yours is a gigolo locked in Voldemort's private prison!"

"Voldemort has screwed YOUR father, not mine, jackass!"

"BOTH OF YOU – STOP!" Sirius thundered, his wand alternatingly pointing at the two Harry's.

They stopped fighting.

But they waited, and waited. It seemed that Sirius didn't know what to do.

One of the Harry's suggested. "Why don't you check him for traces of Dark Mark or something? I don't think Polyjuice can hide such a dark magic."

The other nodded. "Yeah, do that to him too. But maybe you'd better stunned BOTH of us before checking anything."

"But on second thought, that probably doesn't work, since a Healer said there is some sort of dark magic in my scar too."

"But if you're so stupid that you can't figure out that I am the real me, you'd better request a back up. Maybe from Dumbledore."

"Make sure the Old Coot is the real him before you listen to anything he says."

"By the way, are you REALLY Sirius?"

"Yeah, I don't think my godfather is THIS stupid. He is, after all, a Marauder!"

Sirius listened with awe and suspicion. Something was wrong about this, very wrong, but he couldn't put a finger on it.

"Let's beat the crap out of him, shall we?" One of the Harry's suggested.

"Agreed!"

-oOoOo-

One of the Harry's pointed a stun pen at Sirius, and not before long, the ex-prisoner couldn't move his body. Sirius was still conscious. He could still hear and see what was happening, but he couldn't do a thing to save his life or honour. The newly upgraded pen had included a paralysis mode.

Sirius screamed mentally, _No.. No.. No.. I'd rather die than be outsmarted by a prank of ridiculous proportions by a child. Gosh, don't tell me both of them really are Harry's!_

"You bitch!" The other Harry looked furious, while grabbing a neck of a bottle, as though intending to use it as a weapon. "You dared hurting my _fake_ godfather!"

"Shut up, bitch!" The Harry with a stun pen snapped, before smirking. "Let's see who the real bitch is!"

Suddenly, a large group of female dogs of a variety of breeds rushed into the room. The Harry with the bottle screamed, and in panic, he poured the contents of the bottle onto Sirius.

The bitches wiggled their tails happily, enjoying licking whipped cream off Sirius.

Sirius felt very tickling but he couldn't move one bit. It was painful, really painful in a wicked, wicked way.

"You look so wet, godfather, dear." One of the Harry's said.

"Let's change his clothes."

And so they did. One of them took off Sirius's clothes as the other poured more whipped cream on Sirius's naked skin.

Sirius cried mentally and helplessly, "No, no, no, no, noooo!," as one of the bitches' tongues moved closer to Sirius's groin area.

"Too bad," One of the Harry's remarked with a gleam in his eyes, "we don't have clothes that he can change into."

-oOoOo-

One and a half hours earlier...

As soon as Harry arrived at 12 Grimmauld Place, he made a beeline for a loo. Once inside a private space, he spun his Time Tuner.

"Jarvis, date and time?"

Jarvis confirmed that he indeed travelled back two hours. This ought to be enough.

"Call Dudley. It was time to put his acting skills to good use!"

"Lord Pottery Lottery," On Harry's glasses screen showed a deeply bowing Dudley, "you look snappy and seemed to be planning immorality to be unleashed unto reality."

"Activate Plan B," Harry said simply, though we wondered if he really needed to plan much if he could just go back in time to buy time to think and adjust a plan according to changing circumstances.

Dudley grinned with delight. He grabbed a rucksack before asking Robot to locate Harry and fly Dudley to Harry's location.

It didn't take long.

They didn't exchange words when they met. They knew what to do, and they knew they didn't have much time. Harry gave Dudley a string of his hair to be put in the Polyjuice Potion that Dudley brought. And Harry observed Dudley drink it with fascination. After Dudley transformed into Harry, he wore Harry's spare glasses and they swapped their clothes. Harry even lent Dudley his Time Tuner, which was central to the plan of having two impersonating-Harry Dudleys at a time. Finally, Harry retrieved a syringe from the rucksack. He wanted to know if Polyjuice changed just appearance or the drinker's DNA too.

Harry and Dudley looked at remaining contents from the rucksack: fake blood, fake cut and bruise cosmetics similar to those used on Hollywood actors, a duplicate of Bellatrix's dagger modelled after what they saw in Sirius's memory, a bottle of whipped cream, and spare clothes. They exchanged devilish grins.

-oOoOo-

Dudley still lived in Privet Drive to stay close to Petunia. At first he had used a special Portkey (only usable by Dudley and anyone else could not tag along) to commute between home and work. But things changed when Harry asked him, after Dudley used the Portkey for a few days, if he was the same Dudley, for the Boy-Who-Lived was not sure whether a Portkey could really transport people, or it _destroyed_ people and then created an exact copy at the destination.

Dudley was so horrified that he refused to go to work until Harry gave him Knight Bus advanced tickets. Needless to say, the driver was so careless a man that had made Dudley puke his breakfast every day for a week. Dudley got used to it now, but still... Dudley felt like something had to be done to pay back.

He would love to do something very devilish, but instead decided to pay back for a clever remark with sheer stupidity. After having participated in Harry's last prank, Dudley learnt not to mess with his boss, or his reality would be much less surreal.

"Master," Dudley was on his knees, "I disappoint you again. I- I am a stupid scumbag bringing disgrace to the scientific community. I deserve nothing but death penalty! Please penalise me, Master!"

Harry rolled his eyes. He always wanted a bit of drama now and then, to make life a bit more colourful. But asking a lab assistant to spend 20% of his time to watch movies and attend acting classes (fully subsidised by Harry, of course) may have been a mistake.

Dudley stood up and waved his hand dramatically in a half-circle, as if receiving a command from Heaven. "Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image!"

Harry's eyes followed Dudley's arm motion until he saw a Pensieve. "Does it work?"

Dudley was on his knees again. "I deserve death, Master! I tried duplicating the amazing movie artefact at a molecular level, yet I failed at duplicating its magical effects. I-I failed you!" Dudley rubbed onions below his eyes to produce some tears.

Harry crossed him arms, reading lab reports that were laid out on his desk before him. "So all material, energy and entropy scans suggest that this built-by-Dudley Pensieve is identical to the one at Madam Malkin, is it not?"

Dudley got up and danced, swinging his belly stomach as though he was playing an invisible hoola-hoop. "Yeah, yeah, yeah... ahhhh!"

Harry was not surprised, but still a bit disappointed. If whatever bits of magic were indeed present in a magical artefact, maybe they ought to try another way to separate magic from energy and matters that already they knew. This reminded him of another work-in-progress project. "Have you succeeded at identifying the matter or energy that makes Hogwarts ghosts?"

Dudley looked a bit annoyed. "If you know how to catch one of these buggers, please let me know!"

Harry blinked. Usually he offered research participants some form of monetary compensation, yet he had no idea what sort of compensation was appropriate for ghosts, or perhaps he needed a totally different recruitment tactic. "Javis, once Robot found enough information on ghost psychology, report back immediately."

"Understood."

"You are unusually quiet today, Harry," Dudley observed.

Harry smiled weakly. It was not often that Dudley showed his soft side. Well, Harry and Dudley appeared to hate each other sometimes, but deep down, they did care about each other in a twisted sort of way.

Actually Harry's spirit had somewhat gone downhill since Quirrell's death. Harry's nightmare regarding Quirrell's death intensified, especially after his visits to Azkaban, and just last night, Harry heard Quirrell cry for his blood. In the dream, Quirrell screamed, "What you did didn't save me. It killed me!" with an accusative stare, full of hatred, and Harry couldn't even look back due to overwhelming guilt.

Harry tried to not give it any thought, since this would be an emotional investment that offered negative return, but he couldn't shake it away. Not that he wanted to admit it to Dudley, of course. Dudley already had enough to worry about. His transition to the magical world was not easy.

So Harry shared with Dudley his second biggest worry. "McGonagall was not happy with the way I used her to promote M&P. But when I offered to terminate the contract, by removing her from my marketing campaigns and giving wrinkles back to her, she screamed and stormed away, even though I insisted she could keep the money! I don't really understand women sometimes."

Dudley grinned, having heard his share of Petunia's whining about cosmetics. "And Hagrid was happy with that?"

Harry shrugged. "He doesn't complain."

-oOoOo-

Hagrid had been asked by Dumbledore to stick to the story that his new youthful appearance was a result of accidental magic while walking in the Forbidden Forest with McGonagall. But Hagrid was not capable of lying. So he asked Dumbledore to Obliviate him. But something incredible happened: Dumbledore's magic failed on him! For the first time, Dumbledore's spell failed to work, not once but three times! So he asked McGonagall to do it, but her magic didn't work on him either! After a lot of spells cast, hypotheses tested, it was concluded that Hagrid and McGonagall were magic-resistant though they were still be able to use magic. It was just that most spells did not have any effects on them anymore.

Dumbledore summoned Harry, who said a lot of weird things Hagrid did not understand, using words like metabolism and hormones. Hagrid thought it was a different kind of magic that was cast on him on that fateful night, so normal magic didn't work on him anymore.

At Harry's suggestion, poor Hagrid had no choice but to attend acting classes so that he could be better at lying. And from there interesting things happened... because acting classes only existed in the Muggle World.

His classmates didn't believe he was Hagrid. They thought he was Andrew Garfield, an actor who played a human-spider hybrid in a movie (it took him a while to _misunderstand_ what actors did, what movies were, etc). The fact that he brought bodyguards with him made the matter worse because they said only important people needed bodyguards. And it didn't help that Harry performed magic to change Hagrid's voice to match Andrew Garfield's before Hagrid entered the Muggle World!

The turning point took place when Dudley, one of his bodyguards suggested that he could pretend to be Andrew Garfield to practice acting. Well, Dudley was more of a companion than a bodyguard since the boy had taken these classes before. But anyway, any practice sounded good, so Hagrid agreed.

"Alright, alright guys.." Hagrid was pleased to learn that he was capable of using 'cool' phrases he had learnt. "I'm not Hagrid. I'm Andrew Garfield."

His male classmates sniggered as his female mates giggled at the admission.

Hagrid continued. "I was bitten by an Acromantula and -"

"What's an Acromantula?"

"A giant spider."

His classmates laughed cheerfully. "Of course, man." "Yeah, totally."

"And somehow the Acromantula's bite –" Hagrid made corresponding hand movements. "– was some sort of accidental magic, transforming me from an ugly half-giant into a handsome young man."

His classmates perked up, listening intently. This was getting interesting. Even Dudley looked at him with wide eyes, impressed.

Hagrid continued effortlessly. "But Uncle Ben didn't want people to seek the Acromantula and get bitten, so he invented a story of ritual magic that triggered the transformation. But I didn't like lying. So he sort of forced me to enrol at a drama school to practice lying and telling people that ritual magic is true and the story of Acromantula is total bullshit."

"Wow, Andrew, you are such a good actor!" Classmates beamed at him. "That was awesome!" "I loved the way you told the story, Andrew!" "This is the best guest lecture, ever!"

Even Dudley wanted to give Hagrid a standing ovation.

-oOoOo-

A/N: LOL!

A new school term will start soon, I promise, although not in next chapter. Can you guess who will teach Defence Against Dark Arts? :)


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

-oOoOo-

When Harry first received Polyjuice he Owl-ordered, his analysis failed to understand the linkage between the bio-chemical properties and magical properties of the potion. He tested the Polyjuice on many subjects, but this one amused Harry most.

Dudley recruited female vagrant off the street, and asked her if she was interested to be Mila Kunis for a few hours. Dudley promised to pay her, of course. The lady was surprised, not believing her ears that someone wanted her, an ugly girl, to role play as Mila Kunis. But her opinion soon changed when they brought her to their lab (via Knight Bus). She didn't puke at all because she got used to drug-induced gypsy dancing.

Harry and Dudley recorded the subject's memories (via interview), took the subject's blood, conducted a full-body scan, and compared the results to a Mila Kunis clone three times – (1) before the subject's consumption of Polyjuice, (2) after the subject's consumption of Polyjuice, and (3) after the potion's effects wore off.

(A sedated Mila Kunis clone was floating in a water-filled glass tomb. She was Harry's first attempt at human cloning and was a success. The clone was used for comparison, but the hair Harry put into the potion was from the real Mila Kunis).

The results were stunning – every part of the subject changed to resemble Mila Kunis, except the brain (which self-resized a little bit to fit in her new skull and self-modified some of its qualities so as not to provoke the immune system of the subject's new form). The subject appeared to retain her memories and habits, but she gained Mila's body... even tattoos, wrinkles and hair style – something that the clone did not have! Even more, the subject looked like Mila two years ago, when Harry got the hair – not Mila today.

How could a string of hair carry that much information and for such a long time? There was more than genetic information that passed from Mila to this subject by a string of hair. Dead people's hair, including John F Kennedy and Frank Sinatra, also confirmed this amazing effect of Polyjuice.

Harry was stunned. He needed two things: one, to discover what the hell was going on and two, to have fun from using it.

So when repeated tests, with sufficient sample size, confirmed safety and efficacy, Harry decided to incorporate Polyjuice to Sirius's Welcome-back Day. Having two Dudley's impersonating him was a priceless setup, first tricking Sirius into believing that one of the two Dudley's was really Harry (the other being Bellatrix) and then tricking him into suspecting that both Dudley's were Harry. So when Polyjuice's effects wore off and Sirius saw two Dudley's, who introduced themselves as Harry's Muggle cousins, Sirius screamed childishly, kicking the wall again and again, like a boy who had just lost his ice cream.

And that pleased Harry to no end.

-oOoOo-

One of the Dudley's rolled his eyes at Sirius's childish manner. He drank Polyjuice to transform to Harry again, said with a wink 'We will meet again shortly, my fairy godfather,' and spun a Time Tuner.

The present-day Dudley informed Sirius with a ridiculous bow (his head almost touched the floor, and he shook his head while bowing). "Before you plot your revenge, Mr. Black, Mr. Potter would like to challenge your Lordship of the Noble and Most Ancient House of Marauder in a contest."

Sirius had been stunned for a few seconds before replying, "What kind of contest?"

Dudley said, "Mr. Potter will explain it to you shortly. Now, please excuse me, I have to attend a drama school to hone my acting and bullshitting skills." What Dudley didn't say was that he needed to (a) go back to the lab to write a report on Pensieve duplication and (b) accompany Hagrid to the drama school.

Dudley really loved his job – drama, prank, research. It was all in one job.

-oOoOo-

"There is no way Kreacher can lose to this nasty metallic creature! Kreacher shall not bring shame to the House Elves!"

"I... do not intend to lose to mentally challenged beings that are not able to use even first or second personal pronouns! I, Robot the Great, shall prove to his awesome Master and his Master's childish godfather once and for all that House Elves should be made obsolete and replaced by friendly Artificial Intelligence machines!"

Harry smirked at Sirius, who pouted and crossed his arms like a child who had been refused an ice-cream.

"Ready?" Harry intoned. "Round. One. Fight!"

Sirius read his script with twinkling eyes. "Your task is to make three-course dinner for three people. You are not provided any ingredients, so feel free to seek ingredients yourself within the budget of 3 galleons that we will give you shortly. You are not allowed to use your own money or ingredients. You have 3 hours to finish the task. Good luck."

Harry handed each of the contestants 3 galleons and also wished them good luck.

-oOoOo-

Three hours later... the guests arrived in their best dresses: Dumbledore in Superman costume, Hagrid in Spiderman costume, and Lavender Brown in a brown gala dress. Well, they were invited because they all played a part in Sirius's exoneration. Harry wished the Minister's secretary could also be able to join them, but she was spending time in Azkaban. The Ministry considered the case closed since all damages were accounted for in her confession, and this was sufficient evidence to them.

"Kreacher," Harry said kindly, "Please take a seat."

Kreacher looked very, very uncomfortable. But he obeyed the order without a fight. Well, this was not his utter loyalty: he had been ordered before hand to obey all commands that were phrased like requests.

"Half of each dish contains food that was cooked by our resident House Elf, Kreacher, and the other half by Harry's mechanical house elf, Robot." Sirius explained to the guests after they took their seats.

For some reason, Lavender Brown looked even more uncomfortable than Kreacher.

"I am offended, Mr. Black." Robot pouted. "It is like calling a lion... an empowered dog."

"Do you have a problem with dogs, Robot?"

Robot bowed deeply. "Sincere apologies, Mr. Black. Your voice indicates discomfort. I shall remember not to have hot dogs served, but not today."

"Did you have anything to do with this?" Sirius looked at Harry with narrow eyes.

Harry smirked. "I did live in the same time-space continuum with Robot. Is that a strong connection to you?"

Sirius blinked and turned to address his guests, "Honourable guests, we will not tell you which half was cooked by whom. We just hope that you could give a mark on a scale of 10, to each half of the dishes served tonight. This is not a prerequisite to eating our food – it is just a very, very personal request to participate in a friendly contest between Harry's Robot and my 'Robot with a heart', Kreacher."

"I –"

Harry interrupted before Robot could finish his sentence, "Robot, please keep your mouth closed unless you are asked a question. Thank you."

Robot bowed, and silently went back to the kitchen to serve food and drinks, as instructed earlier.

"For Freedom!" Harry lifted his glass of champagne.

"For Freedom!" Glasses clinked, happy smiles exchanged, radiating from their faces.

"And now, our Hors d'oeuvre is ready to serve." Harry announced. "Please enjoy... um... devilled eggs and hot dogs."

Sirius groaned, to the entertainment of Harry and his guests.

"I heard that groan before." Dumbledore remarked with amusement.

They talked avidly about Sirius's detentions at Hogwarts, a subject that didn't interest Kreacher. So Kreacher was the first to eat one of the devilled eggs. It didn't take long before Kreacher's face turned bright red, like a tomato.

Harry looked at Sirius suspiciously. "Did you have anything to do with this?"

Sirius laughed heartily, but shook his head. "Kreacher – " he said between the laughs. "– what have you done?"

Kreacher let out a sigh before recounting his story. "Kreacher was not allowed to use his own money or ingredients. But Kreacher was not prohibited from stealing. So Kreacher had tried to enter Hogwarts, but there seemed to be some kind of anti-apparition wards that prevented Kreacher from getting in. Kreacher had tried to steal proper ingredients from wealthy wizard families too, but suffered from the same failure, since those families could afford decent anti-theft protection. So there Kreacher was – at the House which had little or no protection, the Weasleys."

Dumbledore's lips grew into a big smile. He didn't know what actually happened, but he could make a guess.

"Kreacher was approached by two twin boys who demanded to know what Kreacher was doing there. So Kreacher told the boys that Kreacher was there to steal some eggs for a dinner for his Master and guests. The boys told Kreacher that if he wanted food he could have just asked. In the end, the boys were so nice to offer some eggs to Kreacher for free."

Everyone almost lost their appetite upon hearing that.

"But we gave you money to buy food!" Harry said indignantly. "3 galleons should be more than enough for a dinner for 3!"

Kreacher smirked. "Kreacher only knew that 3 galleons were more than enough for hiring a witch to cook everything for Kreacher."

Hagrid regarded Kreacher with big eyes. He had never heard of a House Elf hiring a witch or wizard to do its work. "And who would that be?"

Lavender Brown slowly raised her hand, her face red but not as red as Kreacher's. "Kreacher asked me whether I was interested in cooking for Harry Potter. I know House Elves cannot tell lies, but obviously he didn't tell the whole truth. And I didn't know that Mr. Potter would be here at Mr. Black's dinner tonight!" Lavender said quickly. "But don't take me wrong – I didn't accept money for cooking for Harry Potter. Any girl would be honoured to cook for him."

Harry opened his mouth, but couldn't find his voice. This was awkward. So he directed this craziness toward the right target, Kreacher. "So what did you do with the 3 galleons we gave you?"

"Kreacher gave the money to the guards at Azkaban in the hope that Mistress Lestrange could return one day and drive Mudblood-lover Master and Filthy Half-blood Young Master off this Noble and Ancient House."

Sirius and Dumbledore exchanged worried glances.

"How about you, Robot?" Harry asked with a tint of pride in his voice. "What did you do with the 3 galleons we gave you?"

Robot gave a deep bow before replying. "Master, I tried to maximise total satisfaction given the constraint of 3 galleons and found a loophole in the optimisation problem. So I took the liberty of borrowing Master's Time-Tuner _without asking_, replicated his lotto-victory method, and used the reward money to hire the best chefs out there to prepare food for you and your guests, sir."

Lavender and Hagrid didn't seem to totally understand what Robot had said, while Sirius gave Robot overly joyful applause. He clapped his hands and laughed very loudly.

Harry didn't miss Dumbledore's quick, enquiring look that said Harry wasn't supposed to tell everyone that he had a Time Tuner.

"Well," Harry took a deep breath. "I guess we could just eat the hot dogs and see what they prepare for us next."

Hors d'oeuvre scores for Kreacher: 6 from Dumbledore, 4 from Hagrid, 0 from Lavender.

Hors d'oeuvre scores for Robot: 6 from Dumbledore, 6 from Hagrid, 6 from Lavender.

-oOoOo-

After the main dish was served, everyone looked at their dish in complete silence, no one daring to touch the food first.

"Well, I can assure you that Robot's part is safe to eat." Harry said with a forced smile, it was forced so hard that his lips twitched. "Though I don't know which part was his."

"If you don't mind a suggestion, Harry," Dumbledore suggested, "May I perform spells that check for poison and harmful substances?"

Sirius replied expertly. "There would still be a question of Muggle poison, which is not always detectable by magical means. Let's instead ask our 'cooks' to explain what they did with the food."

"Robot?" Harry said.

Robot bowed, "Thank you, Master. I basically paid no attention on how my chefs gathered the ingredients, or how they cooked them, since I set aside 50% of the lottery prize money as an incentive, which would be paid out if and only if all of the following conditions are met: (a) Master, Mr. Black and their guests are happy with the food they prepare, (b) hot dogs is the appetiser, and (c) omelette is the main dish. I am happy to tell you that I predict 97% success with this mission."

"What an efficient and heartless manoeuvre." Harry commented dryly. "Thank you for your report, Robot."

"Kreacher?" Sirius asked uncertainly.

"Kreacher hates Old Coot Dumbledore. So he wants to piss him off. But Kreacher also hates Mudblood-lover Master. So Kreacher thinks it is a good idea to make them hate each other. So he risked his life in stealing phoenix eggs and had Miss Brown to make omelette out of it. And he asked a Hogwarts House Elf he met in Diagon Alley to tell Fawkes that Old Coot Dumbledore ate phoenix omelette at Mudblood-lover Master's house. Fawkes should arrive any time now. So Old Coot Dumbledore had better eat the omelette real soon."

Sirius hit the dinner table with his fist. "This...is unacceptable!"

As Sirius's fist hit the table, a piece of omelette bounced right into the Headmaster's jaw-dropped mouth... and in that split second, Fawkes appeared in a flash and witnessed the involuntary swallowing of phoenix omelette.

"EEEEEKKKKK!" Fawkes screamed frantically. The scream was so loud and piecing that Harry needed to cover his ears with both hands.

The phoenix did anything he could to hurt Dumbledore, including kamikaze somersaults, as Dumbledore ran around the dining table like a child being followed by a mad cow.

Needless to say, the dinner was over. All the guests abruptly left, leaving Harry and Sirius stunned for a long moment. All over the place was leftover food, broken glasses, and spilled wine.

It was Harry who broke the silence. "Sirius, did you change Kreacher's script in the last minute?"

"No," said Sirius, in all seriousness.

-oOoOo-

A/N: Harry will visit Platform 9 ¾ for the first time in next chapter, and he will have not one, but TWO, Defence Against Dark Arts teachers. Things couldn't go more wrong, muahaha!


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

-oOoOo-

Harry Potter was glad that overusing Robot and Antony did not qualify as abuse of labour. Unlike humans, machines worked 24-7. No, they worked 24-14, 24-21, or even more, thanks to Time Tuners. Harry and Dudley had devised a synchronisation system, with an internal clock within each A.I. to take into account time travelling. Without the synchronisation, when Harry wanted Robot to make him a cup of hot chocolate, he might get two or three, the extra cups produced by Robot's future selves.

With time travelling, work was much faster.

Antony had stealthily scanned all the book pages in Dumbledore's private library, including Dumbledore's rather-cryptic diaries (the Headmaster preferred Pensieves, but diaries were handier when he wanted to check quick little facts). Well, Harry didn't ask Antony to scan the Headmaster's diaries since this would be an invasion of privacy. But according to Antony's programming logic, diaries were books, and he was ordered to scan all books, so he scanned all Dumbledore's diaries.

What Harry learnt from the diaries almost shocked him: Voldemort didn't die the night Harry got his scar. Dumbledore wrote 'V escaped' on the date Quirrell died, and it didn't take Harry long to connect this with the fact that Dumbledore told him Quirrell was possessed by an evil spirit but refused to explain further. Harry also checked what Dumbledore wrote on the date he got his scar. The Headmaster wrote, 'RIP JP & LP. V died but will return. V alive as long as HP alive. The scar.'

This led to Harry's utter paranoia. So he asked Antony to install hidden video cameras everywhere in Hogwarts, including the Headmaster's Office, staff offices, staff headquarters, and houses' Common Rooms and bedrooms. Harry wrote programming codes so that his A.I.s could learn each person's behaviour and detect if their behaviour unexpectedly changed, especially alone behind the doors, just in case they were possessed by Voldemort. Anyone could be possessed by Voldemort, so Harry needed to be on guard.

And he thought it would be a good idea for everyone else to be on guard too.

Harry believed Dumbledore didn't want the knowledge that Voldemort was alive to go public lest it would cause panic and harm the stock markets (um, was there a Wizard equivalent? – Harry gotta check that). If they could eliminate the Voldemort threat without alarming the public, there was no need to alarm the public.

But still, Harry wanted people to be on guard before Voldemort made his first move.

One important thing he learnt from Dumbledore's private library was a dark magic called Legilimency. This subject did not appear in any School Library books, but it was something that, according to the Order of Phoenix reports, Voldemort used often to get information out of his foes.

So why the hell wasn't Occlumency part of Hogwarts's curriculum? The goblins seemed to see the importance of learning this art, but witches and wizards in general remained ignorant!

Harry sworn to himself,_ I must not rely on Dumbledore, regardless of his heart._ Dumbledore himself often said that he trusted Hagrid with his life, but trusting someone's heart and trusting someone's competence were equally important! You could not trust a good-hearted feeble girl to go to Gringotts and make a deposit of a thousand galleons for you – should she be attacked in transit, she couldn't defend herself!

And this Dumbledore trusted Hagrid to deliver one-year-old Harry Potter to the Dursleys, right after the fall of Voldemort, when the Death Easters were seeking blood as a revenge for their fallen master!

According to the Order of Phoenix's file, Hagrid's profile got the following marks:

Combat magical knowledge: 6/10  
Magical strength: 6/10  
Physical strength: 9/10  
Endurance: 9/10  
Agility: 4/10

Harry big-sweated. Hagrid would be a tank character in a role-playing game, someone he would not trust to use against swift or dirty opponents. The fact that Harry himself survived Hagrid's delivery was probably due to the fact that Hagrid was not attacked while transporting him to the Dursleys.

Harry's mind was set to do a couple of things quickly. One, learn Occlumency and make it compulsory for all students and find a way to teach anyone who already graduated (oooh, such a big task). Two, Harry grinned devilishly, improve the Defence Against Dark Arts classes, starting with the teacher.

-oOoOo-

Remus Lupin was not sure he ought to be happy or sad. He wanted to kick himself and make a heartfelt apology to Sirius for losing faith in him. He heard that Harry and Sirius organised a chaotic welcome back party, and without inviting him... but that was to be expected. Remus had never even tried to see Sirius in prison, or fought for a fair trial. He totally failed as a friend. And he didn't have the courage to see or Floo-call Sirius. He was so ashamed and overwhelmed by guilt.

When Dumbledore offered Remus a job as a Defence Against Dark Arts teacher, Remus knew he would see Sirius again anytime soon. Dumbledore told him that Harry spent most of his time in his secret quarters somewhere in Hogwarts, and Sirius was granted a privilege to visit Harry at Hogwarts from time to time. Well, the man deserved quite a bit of privileges after spending years in Azkaban. But Remus didn't know what to do when seeing Sirius again. Remus was also worried about what Harry thought of him. From what he heard, Sirius and Harry got along very well. If Sirius hated him, so would Harry.

And that would break his heart.

Remus sighed before leaving his house (more like a rat's hole) and making a trip to Hogwarts. He couldn't afford a connection with Floo Network, so he needed to travel the old fashion – Apparating to Hogsmeade. Dumbledore had requested an urgent meeting before the term started.

-oOoOo-

"Hello, Remus 1," Dumbledore smiled with a twinkle in his eyes. The Headmaster was having fun. "Allow let me offer Lemon Drops and introduce to you Remus 2."

Remus's eye caught a copy of himself sitting in front of the Headmaster.

"Hello Remus 1," a copy of himself offered him a hand with a serious-looking face, "it is a pleasure to meet you."

Remus shook hand with his copy, and gave Dumbledore a very, very questioning look.

"How would you explain this confusing phenomenon, Remus?"

Remus considered the question. "He is either an imposter or my future self."

Dumbledore looked pleased. "Go on."

"To identify him, I -"

Dumbledore corrected Remus, "him or her."

Remus nodded, "To identify him or her, I shall ask him or her a question which only I know. If he knows the answer, he is me. If he doesn't, he is not."

Dumbledore grinned, "What if he is an impostor who mind-raped your future self, impersonated you and went back in time to set up a plan to mind-rape you?"

Remus took quite some time to recover from shock. "I shall ask him or her _a few_ questions that are _not important_ but only I know."

The other Remus looked at him sadly, "I.. I have been Obliviated. I mean complete Obliviation. I couldn't even remember my name. So Dumbledore from my timeline suggested that I go back to the past to learn a bit more about myself and he said that recovery of feelings toward people I loved was as important as recovery of memory."

Remus, who had been standing, sank into a chair. "How did that happen?" he whispered.

Dumbledore looked at him disapprovingly. "You are a Defence Professor. Have you already believed his story?"

That made Remus _very_ suspicious of Dumbledore. Dumbledore had never made witty comments in a sharp manner like that. Dumbledore had always used a gentle, flowery tone to everyone, even during wartime.

But maybe things changed.

Remus made a resolution. It was not the most convenient, but it was the most reliable method. "I shall either use Thief's Downfall on him or wait until the time I expect the Polyjuice to wear off."

"Behind you, Remus!" Dumbledore said in an alerting tone, combat-ready.

Remus quickly spun back... as Dumbledore shot him in the back with a stun pen.

-oOoOo-

Remus opened his eyes drowsily, horrified and relived to see the smiling faces of Sirius Black and Harry Potter. It was not difficult to identify Harry. The boy had got James's face and Lily's eyes.

"Sirius..." Remus said weakly, getting up from the floor in the Headmaster's Office.

"If you wonder what have just happened, it was me who stunned you, mate," Sirius winked, "and with a Muggle weapon."

Harry addressed Dumbledore, "Albie, please tell me again, why do we have to have such an incompetent person as a Defence Teacher?"

Dumbledore sighed and smiled! He looked relented and pleased at the same time. "Harry," he said wearily, "I have no option but to agree with your proposal of having two Defence Teachers this year."

"WHAT?" Remus blurted out.

Sirius grinned. "You didn't check. It was me who impersonated Dumbledore while the real Dumbledore was invisible the whole time, witnessing the special interview."

"Yeah," said a chubby boy Remus hadn't met before, "you really are incompetent. I pretended to be your future self, and you would have fallen for it if Sirius wasn't there asking questions! By the way, my name is Dudley. I'm Harry's favourite cousin."

"So," Harry smirked, "we decided that Dudley will be the second DADA teacher. He will be impersonating you all year round. Students will need to distinguish the real one from the impersonator, or their homework doubles."

Remus sighed, "Ok. Fair enough, but this is not wartime. I don't see the need to-"

Harry singsonged, "Be prepared!"

Sirius responded, "Woof, woof, woof, woof!"

Dudley added with a chuckle, "Don't worry, Remus. I'm a good actor."

Remus nodded grimly, "Point taken." Suddenly the werewolf brightened, "Hey.. does this mean you are not mad at me, Sirius.. I want.. I want to say I'm so sorry.."

Remus gave Sirius a tight, friendly hug, with tears gathering in his eyes.

"It's alright, my friend," Sirius said in a forgiving tone, "we have plenty of time to catch up."

That made Remus feel even more guilty. Sirius was such a great friend. How could he have neglected Sirius all these years? – Remus couldn't forgive himself.

-oOoOo-

Harry complained loudly, "Why do I have to go to King's Cross and then come back to Hogwarts? This is STUPID."

Sirius chuckled. "Even pureblood families don't complain for travelling from the Wizard World to Muggle World via a Muggle-friendly means when they can just Apparate to Hogsmeade. Who are you to complain?"

"I hate traditions," commented Harry, "unless they are optimal."

Their walking slowed into a halt. Harry looked at the space between Platforms 9 and 10. There was nothing but an unpromising brick wall.

Harry frowned. "_Hogwarts: A History_ doesn't say anything about how to identify Platform 9 ¾. It is a bad book."

And right there, at the train station, Harry Potter burnt a copy of _Hogwarts: A History_ with a lighter. The fire, the smoke and the crazy-looking angry boy together made quite a scene.

Security officers of the King's Cross took no time to approach the Boy-Who-Lived and contain the fire. One of them gave Harry a reprimanding look. This tough-looking guy seemed to be the one in charge. "What were you doing!?"

Harry looked at him sheepishly, pretending to be an idiotic child.

The man turned to Sirius with a disdained, disapproving face. "Are you his parent?"

Sirius nodded overly happily and enthusiastically.

"Why didn't you do anything to stop him?"

Sirius pointed at Harry and spoke in a childish, idiotic manner, "He's my daddy. Why should I stop him, sir?"

Some of the security staff exchanged worried glances, some giggles.

The guy in charge said calmly, "Both of you, sir, please follow me. There are procedures we have to follow in case of fire."

Harry acted like an idiot who didn't see a brick wall in front of him and kicked the wall. He wanted to pretend to hurt his foot and have these Muggles to carry him to their office or wherever (so that he didn't have to walk).

To Harry's great surprise, he was teleported to another place upon contacting the wall.

"Bow chicka wow wow!" yelled the Boy-Who-Teleported, who almost lost his balance. "Ain't nobody got time for that!"

A man caught Harry's arm with a strong grip. "Got you, Mr. Potter."

Harry looked up to see the face of the man who rescued him from falling. "Thank you," said Harry with his eyes wide, remembering his face from Gringotts's male grooming course brochure, "Lord Malfoy." The boy gave a slight bow and reserved smile.

Standing beside Lord Malfoy was a smiling Draco and a posh lady whom Harry assumed to be Draco's mother. Harry could tell, even from a distance and without Jarvis, that the Malfoys wore the high-end line of M&P clothes, each tailor-made to perfection – the texture, the colours, the fitting, and Harry suspected, bits of illusion charms to hide fat and unwanted bodily parts were all customised to make them look elegant and wizardly. Harry himself wore similar clothes, but didn't pay attention to details or make custom requests to the insane level that the Malfoys did.

"I hope we meet under better circumstances, Mr. Potter." Lord Malfoy's Received Pronunciation accent seemed to have been acquired at ancient British establishments, like Eton and Sandhurst. The man looked amused. "Perhaps in a business meeting room, or our residence's living room laced with the finest furniture and served with the finest refreshments."

Harry smiled warmly, offering each of them a handshake, "Pleased to meet you, Lord Malfoy, Madam Malfoy. And pleased to see you again," Harry shook hands with Draco, "Mr. Malfoy."

The Boy-Who-Lived addressed Lucius again. "Lord Malfoy, may I express that I enjoy luxury as much as convenience? It is unfortunate that time may be a luxury to you but is a constraint to me. As such, I suggest our secretaries keep in touch to make an efficient and fruitful meeting possible. Here is my business card."

Lucius placed both hands on his cane, as if posing for a photograph, nodding slightly before accepting the card. "I am certain you are a busy businessman, Mr. Potter. You have an interesting, if not unconventional, way of conducting business that we may wish to experiment and replicate."

"Please excuse my ignorance, Lord Malfoy." Harry bowed slightly. "Having been raised in a non-magical environment, I am not accustomed to the general business practices of managerial witches and wizards. It is I, who is in a serious need to learn from successful business-wizards, like yourself. By the way, did I mention that I had heard so much about you, Lord Malfoy?"

Lucius's lips grew into a slight grin. "In a good way, I hope?"

"That... was a vast understatement, Lord Malfoy." Harry returned the grin.

"Very well," Lucius looked amused, "Who would have guessed that within such a short time after you were introduced to the Magical World, you could achieve tremendous entrepreneurial success by which even I am impressed?"

Harry chuckled. "I have recently been aware of my fame in the Magical World, yet it is comical that my childhood had been enshrouded in mystery. Speaking of fame, although it is not my choice to be famous, it is my choice to capitalise on this golden opportunity, hence the commercial possibilities."

"Your choice of brand logo is ingenious, Mr. Potter." Narcissa said with a soft, gentle, classy voice, pointing to the lightning logo of her shiny M&P handbag, of which colour and style perfectly matched that of her dress. "It is simple, yet carries the power of dedication, trust and hope. I have to say that your monetisation strategy has been expertly done so far."

Draco drawled, "It is not often that the Executive and Marketing Directors of the Malfoy Empire offer someone a compliment, Mr. Potter."

"BASTARD SCARHEAD – WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

Harry's eyes twitched at Sirius's barbaric call for him, a vein popping up on his temple.

-oOoOo-

To be continued.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

-oOoOo-

"Wow, she's so gorgeous!" whispered Sirius excitingly, "Isn't that Mila Kunis?"

Thanks to Harry's rambling about the Muggle pop culture and even sharing with Sirius some dirty magazines, Sirius knew exactly what could distract most Muggle men.

Shortly after the moment of distraction, the security officers of King's Cross returned their attention to Sirius but could not find him. Sirius had already turned into a dog and was walking toward the brick wall between Platforms 9 and 10.

"Now, what's the platform number?"

Sirius's doggy ears straightened up. He didn't expect that question from an adult, and definitely not from a Hogwarts graduate who had a lot of kids attending Hogwarts in the past ten years or so. The question sounded genuine enough, so either the woman was stupid or -

"Mum!" a young boy with flaming red hair protested, addressing a plump woman, also red-headed, "we DID agree that you wouldn't ask that question before you saw a bespectacled boy with a lightning scar looking hopeless!"

- a plot went wrong.

Sirius big-sweated. Although this boy tried a little too hard to become Harry's friend, he had to give him a little credit for trying.

That was when Sirius realised that Harry had gone without bidding him goodbye. The dog groaned as it walked straight at the barrier between platforms nine and ten.

-oOoOo-

"BASTARD SCARHEAD – WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU?!"

Harry's eyes twitched at Sirius's barbaric call for him, a vein popping up on his temple.

Narcissa's gentle smile reduced into a cold albeit poetic one. "Always loud, always gaudy. The Noble and Most Ancient House of Black has never been this jolly."

Draco chuckled. "Did you know, Mr. Potter, that Lord Black and my mother are first cousins, despite all the differences?"

"While it was your parents' arrangement to have Lord Black as your godfather, Mr Potter," Lucius said cautiously, in a voice barely louder than a whisper, bending down to talk to Harry face-to-face, "it is your choice to select your role models and social circles. And this is one of the most important decisions in life, Mr. Potter. Life goals, manners and behaviour, when polluted and not polished, could be disdained by certain political cliques of the Magical Britain, and that would be an unnecessary loss of meaningful friendship and respect. And this lack of credibility could, in turn, lead to loss of political or economic momentum when you need it most, such as requesting a fair investigation when you are suspected of a murder. I believe you see the implication, Mr. Potter?"

Sirius's face darkened for a moment before beaming brightly. "G'day, Narcissa – the posh one!"

Sirius addressed Lucius, with a wink, "Hey, Narcissa's boobs sucker number one."

And Sirius addressed Draco, "And Narcissa's boobs sucker number two."

Lucius straightened up, his grip on the cane so tight that this knuckles turned white. However, Lucius acted as if Sirius was not there. He continued talking to Harry, "Let me share with you a lesson I value dearly, Mr. Potter. Llight-hearted frivolity may open a window of opportunity for you, but unsavouriness is likely to bring the opposite. If you are not attentive as to who or what might influence you, Mr. Potter, you may not be able to dictate your own fate, as sometimes a golden opportunity does not come twice."

Harry opened his mouth – no words coming out – and closed it. Lord Malfoy may have been speaking words of wisdom, but he was indirectly insulting Sirius at the same time. Sirius's lack of social etiquette was not defensible, and any attempt to defend him would make it worse. Harry couldn't apologise for Sirius, either, as that would make Harry look mature and Sirius childish in comparison.

Sirius looked thoughtful. "But you have a Time Tuner. It can come twice! Or you have Viagra, which is an awesome Muggle medicine, you can come twice too!"

"Farewell, Mr. Potter," said Lucius softly, pointedly ignoring Sirius. Lucius then place a hand on Draco's shoulder. "Farewell, son." Another on Harry's. "I wish you both a marvellous year."

Narcissa gave Draco a warm hug, and Jarvis reported that she whispered something in Draco's ears, and in a language that Jarvis didn't understand. The whisper was so quiet that Harry's ears couldn't detect but Jarvis's wave detector could.

Then Narcissa did something that almost shocked Harry. She also gave Harry a hug, and he reluctantly hugged her back because not doing so would be impolite.

Harry would like to kick himself as tears were gathering in his eyes. Harry didn't remember the last time Lily hugged him, and Petunia had never hugged him. He never had a motherly figure before.

"Goodbye, Harry." Narcissa smiled.

So, Harry noted, he had been upgraded from Mr. Potter to Harry. This actually sounded a little scary, coming from a Malfoy.

"Draco," Narcissa muttered in a low voice but loud enough that Harry could hear it, "don't try to impress the teachers. Modesty and dedication should suffice to impress them. That... is one of the most powerful non-magical charms I learnt from Hogwarts. Use it well."

With that, Lucius and Narcissa left without saying anything to Sirius at all.

"Lord Black?" Draco bowed, "Would you excuse my discourtesy for not having acknowledged you earlier? Your unusual salutation had stunned me for a while."

Harry mentally groaned. The Malfoys had dealt with Sirius's childishness with elegance. It was implied that the Malfoy adults would not talk to Sirius until they received his apology. And Draco's apology to Sirius made this whole thing even more ridiculous.

Harry guessed that Draco did this because Narcissa told him to do so when she disguised the whisper in a hug. This achieved at least three things that Harry could think of: proof of social superiority, saving Sirius's face and mollifying Harry. Obviously, the Malfoys were so good at playing a political game at a high level and fast pace!

Harry needed to watch his moves carefully from now on. Malfoys could be either great allies or very dangerous foes.

-oOoOo-

"Lord Black?" Draco bowed, "May you excuse my discourtesy for not having acknowledging you earlier? Your unusual salutation had stunned me for a while."

Sirius grinned. "Your name's Draco right? Don't you worry. I've always been this awesome."

Harry wanted to rub his temples like Dumbledore did. Now he _began_ to understand and sympathise with the Headmaster for tolerating him.

Draco chuckled lightly. "To be honest, Lord Black, I have never seen anyone dare to offend my mother like that. Not that I approve your manners. It is just that if you were not Lord Black or related to Mother, I can predict the consequences of what you had done."

"And what would that be, Mr Malfoy?" Harry found himself asking.

Draco smiled a mysterious smile. "That... is a family secret. After all, nobody could predict what would happen to them, and even after it happens, they have no idea what has happened, nor could they trace it back to us."

Harry winced, feeling icy chills down his spine. He made a mental note, with double underline. _Don't mess with the Malfoys... unless you really have to._

"By the way," Draco's grin turned to a warm smile – Harry thought Draco was either a natural actor or had been extensively trained in acting, "please call me Draco. If Mother addresses you as Harry, you are practically in one of our inner social circles now."

Sirius looked horrified. "That can't be a good thing, can it?"

Draco considered the question. "Lord Black, please understand that sometimes a golden opportunity does not come twice."

Sirius nodded. "Yeah, you shouldn't prank someone with the same trick twice, even if you can."

Draco looked puzzled. "If your opponent doesn't expect a sudden repeat, and the tactic is thought to be effective, then why not?"

Harry big-sweated. Sirius and Draco talked about totally different things, yet they seemed to be on the same page. "Draco, I believe it is a code of honour that is specific to Sirius's inner social circle. While your circles may value political and economic outcomes, his circles give a higher weight to creativity and originality of execution."

Draco smirked. "Mr. Potter –" Draco waited and Harry quickly told him to call him Harry. " – Thank you Harry. Believe it or not, the Malfoys do have a style. We just don't advertise it."

Sirius looked a little sceptical. "Even to your inner social circles?"

Draco said diplomatically, "Styles are better witnessed than said, Lord Black."

Sirius was impressed, nodding in agreement. "Well said, Narcissa's boobs sucker number two. I think I like you."

Draco groaned. "Harry – would you please remind your godfather that my mother's honour has not yet been restored?"

Harry was reluctant, "Um, Sirius?"

"I haven't forgiven you yet for leaving me with the Muggle police!" Sirius shouted childishly.

Harry big-sweated. Security officers were not police, but anyway he needed to settle this quickly. "Sirius, if Lord Malfoy called me Lily's boobs sucker number two, would you be okay with that?"

Sirius's face fell as Draco watched him intently. After a while, Sirius sighed and said, "Alright, alright, I retract my words and will apologise the next time I see her. Happy now?"

Draco bowed. "Thank you, Lord Black." He then turned to Harry with a smile, "Well executed, Harry."

"Now –" Harry looked at the steam engine in front of him. The 'Hogwarts Express' sign overhead contradicted the fact that steam engines were not supposed to be that fast. The chattering sounds of owls, cats and crowds became louder as they approached the train. " – shall we?"

Sirius suddenly looked a little panicked. "You forgot Padfoot, Harry!"

"Padfoot? What're you talking about, Sirius?"

Sirius rolled his eyes. "You named your pet dog yourself. Don't you remember that?"

Harry said, "Oh," playing along, "bad me." Harry knew Sirius's Animagus form from Dumbledore's dairy, but he didn't know his codename. Somehow it sounded fitting. "Where is he now?" Harry's eyes widened. "Don't tell me..."

"I'll be looking for him in King's Cross. Be right back. Don't go anywhere, alright?" Sirius said quickly and sprinted away.

Draco frowned. "Lord Black could have cast a locating spell before searching for the dog. Unless..." Draco was grinning widely now, whispering, "he _is_ the dog."

Harry was stunned for a moment there before muttering "What?"

Draco chuckled heartily. "Come on, now, Harry. Your response was a tad too slow to be believable. Don't worry. I promise to keep this a secret. I won't even tell my mother."

Harry nodded grimly. Now Sirius owed Narcissa an apology AND he owed Draco a debt for keeping Sirius's secret a secret. "Thank you, Draco. But you seem to take the news pretty well. I take it that your family is familiar with Animagus transformation?"

"Well..." Draco became suddenly reluctant. "It is not easy to become an Animagus. My father has located some good books on the subject, but he doesn't want to risk us practicing the Art without being closely mentored by an expert. He has also tried to approach all the registered Animagus in Magical Britain and beyond, most of whom owed Lord Malfoy a favour, but they were all incapable of teaching anyone. They had lost eyesight or magical power due to old age or accidents of some sort. It seems as if the Art was dying. But maybe..." There was a glittering in Draco's eyes. "You can talk to your godfather into teaching us?"

Harry nodded carefully. Sirius could not say no, now that Draco had learnt his secret as an unregistered Animagus. "I'll try," said Harry noncommittally.

-oOoOo-

Draco muttered, "Thanks Harry." His mind was not as thankful. He had not fully trusted Harry yet, although the Boy-Who-Lived seemed to be more trustworthy than Lord Black. Sirius was notorious for mischief in a way that even Draco's parents could not predict. Yes, Draco had learnt about James Potter and the gang's 'creativity and originality of execution'. They were good, but not as good as Lord Voldemort in getting what they wanted. Nobody suspected a Hogwarts student named Tom Riddle of becoming a dark lord, but almost everyone suspected James Potter and the gang for all the mischief. Indeed, some of the mischief attributed to them was engineered by Lucius Malfoy himself, but nobody suspected him at all. James Potter and the gang were just his easy scapegoat.

Well, things changed now. Draco needed to re-evaluate and, if required, rectify the Potter-Malfoy relations. Harry Potter was not only very famous but also very skilful in utilising his fame and other resources to his advantage. The Boy-Who-Lived had started to build his own business empire, one that could pose a threat to Malfoys' political and economic interests. At this stage, Father ordered him to be Potter's friend so that he could learn more about the Scarhead. Father always wanted to have information before making a move. After all, a lad could not play chess in a dark room, could he?

-oOoOo-

Meanwhile...

The Hogwarts Headmaster Office was void of light, void of warmth.

Sitting alone in the cold, dark space was Albus Dumbledore, and he was playing chess against himself. Not his future or past self, but really himself, genuinely alone.

But he cheated himself when he thought the other he was not looking. Dumbledore giggled happily, before asking the other he if he wanted more Lemon Drops.

The other he said "no" and pretended that he didn't know the other he was cheating. So he tried to be a bit conversational. "Did you know why Harry specifically requested Moody to escort Sirius from Azkaban?"

He replied with an amused tone. "Funny you asked that question, Old Coot. Moody is paranoid enough to act scarily moody and destroyed all his files at the Ministry after his retirement. So.."

"Right," Dumbledore nodded, "our Harry somehow has access to a member of the Order of Phoenix's memories, via Legilimency, Pensieve, Veritaserum, alcohol or other Muggle method."

The other he added. "Don't discount the possibility that certain members of the Order of Phoenix are not very capable of keeping secrets."

He giggled. "Well, that's part of the plan."

The other he moved a chess piece. "Yes, but that doesn't explain how Harry knew Moody, someone he was not supposed to know."

The Headmaster paused. "There is one easy way to find out."

"Hold on." Dumbledore warned himself. "Isn't Kreacher a bigger concern?"

He giggled again. "Well, that's also part of the plan."

-oOoOo-

A/N: Thank you for your votes, via PM and reviews.

Now we have several chessmasters.

The insane chessmaster = Dumbledore

The cautious chessmaster = Malfoys

The naughty chessmaster = Harry

The stupid chessmaster = Ron

The evil chessmaster = Voldie (of course)

Sirius is not a chessmaster. He is kinda prankster by instinct. He does not calculate much.


	13. Chapter 13

Chapter 13

-oOoOo-

The door of the compartment slid open and a young redheaded boy came in.

After staring at Harry's forehead for a good five seconds, he asked "Seat taken?" The boy pointed at the seat opposite Harry. "Everywhere else is full."

Padfoot whined at the stranger lazily. The dog looked a bit annoyed at the red-headed boy for interrupting Harry's petting him.

Harry's mind rushed to make a quick calculation of the possibility that all other compartments were actually full. There were three passenger-carrying vehicles, each of which contained 14 compartments, and a compartment could seat six passengers (up to eight, but that would be quite uncomfortable). So the train's normal passenger capacity was 3 _times_ 14 _times_ 6 = 252.

And according to _Hogwarts: A History_, there were about 10 students per house per year. That made a student body of 10 _times_ 4 _times_ 7 = 280 at any time, 24 of which were prefects who had separate and special seating arrangements. So that left the position-less student body of... 280 _minus_ 24 = 256 if Head Boy and Head Girl were also prefects; 254 or 255 otherwise.

Harry big-sweated. All compartments were supposed to be jam-packed if no student was sick, or left Hogwarts before they graduate and was not replaced with transfers. Capacity utilisation was well done, and efficiency was not something that Harry expected from the Wizarding World.

Before Harry opened his mouth to reply, the door of the compartment was knocked three times.

At Harry's nod, Draco Malfoy came in. It didn't take long before Draco made a guess of what had happened. The red-headed boy who looked ambivalent about something had not taken the seat, and Harry looked a tad bored. This meant the red-headed boy had not asked Harry whether he could take the seat, or the boy failed to impress Harry and Harry did not say an outright 'no,' Draco concluded.

"Quiz time, Harry!" Draco said brightly.

Harry looked amused at Draco's sudden change of manner. For the first time, Harry saw a child Malfoy, not Mr. Draco Malfoy a social elite and future lord of an Ancient and Most Noble House.

"Are you really Harry Potter?" the redhead blurted out.

"That... is a very good question." Harry looked thoughtful.

Draco snorted as the redhead looked puzzled.

Harry retrieved some small shiny pieces of paper from his pocket. "Behold the power of Wandless Scar-making Transfiguration, also known as Tattoo Sticker!"

Now both boys looked puzzled.

Padfoot perked up. He barked excitedly, his tail wiggling to and fro like a frenzy clock pendulum.

"Draco, mind receiving a Harry Potter scar?" Harry looked at the pale boy expectantly. Sensing Draco's reluctance, he added. "It is temporary, and you can just wash it off with water whenever you want."

"Alright" Draco said, looking brave.

Harry applied a sticker to Draco's forehead. "There." Harry grinned with satisfaction before addressing the red-haired boy. "Now there're two Harry Potters in this compartment. Would you like to become the third?"

The redhead screamed and ran off, as if he were a Muggle boy having seen a ghost.

Draco took the seat opposite to Harry's, amusement shining in his eyes. "A loo for a minute and I _almost_ missed one of the most fascinating tricks I have ever seen! Human Transfiguration is not taught until sixth year. Did you know that?"

Harry grinned. "I didn't." But then he realised he couldn't answer the question correctly if he had been Obliviated. "But maybe I did."

Draco eyed the remaining tattoo stickers on Harry's hand. "Can I have some of those, Harry? This is fun." Draco wanted to study the advanced charms that Harry applied to the unpromising pieces of papers, maybe sending some of them back to Father for further analysis. But Harry didn't have to know that. Fun was usually a good excuse for a child's curiosity.

"Sure. Why not?" Harry gave Draco all of them. "I have more in my trunk."

Draco sweated. The Boy-Who-Lived was a bit crazy-prepared and thought quite highly of himself. But he had to admit, though, that Potter was very good at what he did.

"At first I wanted to make it happen that everyone can be Harry Potter for a Knut." Harry said nonchalantly, "But then I had a better idea. I wanted to start printing a fashion magazine with Harry Potter Instant Scars (TM) as a complementary thank-you. So I started making prototypes and a bit of market testing. It has proved to be popular so far."

Draco nodded soberly. He was no match for Potter with regard to 'business idea development' skills. Potter had already planned to start some sort of fan club, with the Instant Scar symbolising exclusive membership. The club members would feel special and no doubt more loyal to the M&P brand, or maybe something else that Potter was coming up with.

"By the way, what was the quiz thing about?"

"Oh," Draco's lip twitched upward slightly, "I was about to ask you this: Who have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford?"

Harry was stunned for a few seconds before finding his voice. "Thanks Merlin you didn't ask the question. It was not a nice thing to say, mate. Besides it is simply not true."

Draco raised a brow. "You seemed too nice to shoo him away. I, on the other hand, do not have to be nice to the wrong sort of wizarding families. So basically I just wanted to lend you a hand."

"Thank you, Draco." Harry's mind rushing at high speed, searching for the right words.

Harry didn't think concepts like human dignity would appeal to Draco. Sure, the redhead wore hand-me-down, a bit over-sized robes and was not very good-mannered or good looking. But Harry found it distasteful to look down on someone just because they were poor and not good looking. Harry may have pranked people from time to time and jested around, but he never looked down on people, not on purpose anyway.

He needed to talk to Draco in a language a Malfoy could understand. An idea came to his mind.

"Draco, imagine that you actually asked me the question. What was I supposed to do? If I didn't banish you from this compartment right away, I would lose my reputation as the Boy of Light. But if I did, our relations would never be the same. Either way, it would be a net loss. And a loss does not sound very nice."

Draco's eyes widened in shock. He leapt to his feet and gave Harry a slow, deep bow.

"You have my sincerest apology, Mr. Potter, um, Harry. My shortsightedness blinded me. It seems I still have much to learn. You see, I am still an intern at my family business while you already run yours."

Harry was uncomfortable. Dudley bowed to him just to be dramatic. Robot bowed to him because Dudley set programming that way. Harry was fine with that. But he didn't want people to bow to him for a non-comical reason. "C'mon, now, please don't bow for too long. It will give people a wrong impression if they see this. Anyway, no harm was done, so no apology is necessary."

Draco took his seat again, somewhat relieved. "You mentioned what I said was not true. May I ask which part? Red hair, freckles, or more children than they can afford?"

Harry blinked, regretting he had said that now. "As far as I'm concerned, the boy sure looked healthy. If hand-me-down robes give sufficient warmth or say, cheap food gives sufficient nutrients, they would make an obvious rational choice, don't you think? I mean, this is behaviour expected of people who wisely maximise usefulness per each Knut spent, assuming that the cost of new fashionable clothes exceeds the benefits of impressing someone with the clothes, right?"

"But that would be really bad for business," said Draco slowly. He looked thoughtful for a few seconds before adding, "Yes, I also heard the rumour that the Weasleys _pretended_ to be poor, but what sort of parents could be that mean to their children? If parents could give their children expensive gifts but they choose not to, then they cannot be good parents, can they?"

Harry doubted it. He never met rich parents who didn't spoil their children, but he never met spoiled children who had received good parenting either. "So you concluded that they had to be poor or they were bad parents?"

Draco nodded. "Can you conclude otherwise?"

Now Harry knew why the Malfoys hated the Weasleys. If the rumour was true, the Weasleys represented a type of consumers that the Malfoys feared – rich consumers who lived a modest, non-extravagant life and was not easily influenced by marketing. They did not own the latest and flashiest iPhone model, fashionable clothes, or smartest sports car. They owned a reliable phone, warm and polite-looking clothes and a safe family car. They bought only what they needed, not what marketers kept telling them they needed. In their eyes, they were some of the wisest consumers out there in the planet although the rest of the world saw them as unfashionable and sneered at them.

If this rumour was true, Harry would truly respect the Weasleys. (Maybe except the Weasley boy he had just met.)

-oOoOo-

Harry had heard annoying clatterings outside the compartment for a while. It grew louder and louder until a smiling, dimpled woman slid back their door and said, "Anything off the cart, dears?"

"For free?" Harry smiled his best charming smile. Not waiting for a reply, he stood up and bowed. "THANK YOU SO MUCH, Ma'am!" Harry said excitedly.

With great effort, Draco successfully repressed his snigger.

The Trolley Witch was stunned for a moment before replying with kind eyes. "I'm so, so, so sorry, dears. I'm not well off enough to run a charity. But tell you what, since you sort of asked, I will give you special prices."

Draco looked very impressed.

"What are these and how much, Madam?" Harry pointed at small packages with pictures of chocolate-coloured frogs.

"A box of yummy Chocolate Frog for a Sickle and four Knuts, dear," the saleswoman replied sweetly. "A free collectible card inside, guaranteed!"

Harry frowned. "May I ask you a question, Ma'am? Does Hogwarts charge you a concession fee so heavy that impels you to set such a high price on candies, or you just enjoy your monopoly power a little too much?"

The Trolley Witch's face darkened. "What do you mean, dear? I don't quite understand what you have just said."

Harry was relentless. "Every other shop I've come across sells a box of Chocolate Frog at the retailed suggested price, which is a Sickle. Your price at a Sickle and four Khuts is 13.79% higher the market price, even after the alleged discount you gave us. May I ask, why is that so?"

Draco watched the scene with wide eyes.

Padfoot was, however, sniggering, though his snigger sounded more like half-barking and half-coughing.

The Trolley Witch looked outrageous. "If you don't want anything, you could just say so! No need to be rude, Mister!" She took a couple of deep breaths to calm herself down, and she left without a word.

Silence lingered for a moment before Draco walked to slide the door close. He looked like he couldn't contain it any longer, his face red and badly, badly controlled. It didn't take long before Draco Malfoy burst out laughing. His laugh was loud and hearty, not the tactical or cultured sort of laugh expected of a Malfoy.

Harry frowned. "I hope you are not encouraging me, Draco. Given that her business is rather small in value and she is quite old and a bit hunchbacked, I'd like to give her a break."

-oOoOo-

There was a knock on the door of their compartment and a round-faced boy came in. He looked tearful.

"Sorry," he said, "but have you seen a toad?"

Harry looked thoughtful. "I think I met a toad-faced woman at the Ministry of Magic last week. Are you looking for her?"

The boy said miserably. "No, Trevor's my pet toad." He wailed, "I've lost him! He keeps getting away from me!"

Harry raised an eyebrow. "I'm not an expert in zoology, but aren't toads sort of poisonous?"

The boy looked blank, not knowing what to say.

"Most magical toads are." Draco offered softly. "But their toxins are not deadly. Common effects include forgetfulness and skin irritation. This is why my family pet shop has very few toads on sale."

"Hang on!" Harry looked a little confused. "Do pet toads keep getting away because their owners keep forgetting to feed them or because they are free-spirited?"

"Both." Draco replied, noting Potter's brilliance in deduction skills. He then addressed the round-faced boy sympathetically. "Best of luck with finding him. But speaking as someone who doesn't want to see people unnecessarily intoxicated by pets, I suggest that you get a new one. I bet you will be happier with an owl or cat."

"Well, if you see him..."

"I'll tell him to look for you?" Harry snorted a bit before seeing the boy's face and muttering an apology. He cleared his throat. "Don't worry that much. If he keeps getting away, this means you keep finding him, or for some mysterious reason he keeps getting back to you despite his free-spiritedness. So there is a good chance that you will see him again."

The boy's face brightened up.

"Let me help you find him." Harry said heroically. "Hopefully, we'll find him just before he decides to jump off the window or something."

The round-faced boy looked horrified at the thought, his face very pale. He muttered a thank you very weakly.

Draco was on his feet. "I'll come too."

Padfoot was on his feet too, and barked a few times.

"Padfoot," Harry reprimanded, "stay here! If you don't listen this time, I will find a collar. Understand?"

The dog snorted.

Harry wanted to roll of the floor laughing right there. He had never seen a dog snort. Well, he couldn't even have imagined a disrespectful laugh from a dog!

"Let's go!" announced Harry energetically. "Mission: Rescue Trevor begins!"

Unbeknownst to the round-faced boy, this was a mutually beneficial _unsaid_ agreement between Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy. They knew they could use a locating spell (or asked someone to do it). But Harry wanted to do a bit of public relations, and Draco wanted to be seen around with Harry.

Sometimes a golden opportunity didn't come twice. So they grabbed it as soon as they saw it coming.

-oOoOo-

Draco watched with fascination as Harry handed out lightning-shaped chocolate to everyone he came across. "Harry Potter, pleased to meet you!" "No, sorry. But questions may be asked during the upcoming press conference. For now, please let me know if you have seen a toad." "Alright. Appreciated your help. Have a good term, mate!"

Draco was often asked how he got his lightning scar. "Oh," Draco grinned mysteriously, "I can't say anything, but you'll know soon enough." "Sorry but that's between Harry and me." "By the way, have you seen a toad at all?" Draco gave people the impression that Harry confided some sort of secret in Draco. And anyone that Harry Potter trusted could not be a bad guy, right?

If people trusted Snape because they trusted Dumbledore and Dumbledore trusted Snape, then this could be a new beginning for the Malfoys. People did not really trust their story of being Imperius'ed and working on the Dark Lord's bids against their will. Their opinions could easily change with Draco's frequent presence around Potter.

Of course, it was not an important secret, but people didn't have to know that. Draco just needed to pretend it was some sort of top secret.

And Harry Potter seemed to play along... because he thought it was fun or he didn't want to ruin Draco's fun, Draco was not sure. But Draco achieved his goal and he was happy.

There had been awkward moments, though.

The Slytherins seemed to understand why Draco did this. Those who didn't understand pretended to understand it anyway, because not doing so would make them look less cunning and less dangerous... of course, unless you wanted people to think you were not dangerous, but this sort of trick could only be used once.

So the Slytherins asked Draco no question and eyed him carefully.

Not surprisingly, they did not act very friendly with Potter, but they were not rude to him either. After all, lots of them were children of Death Eaters. The fates of their parents – imprisoned, dead or still running – were partly attributable to the Boy-Who-Lived. They didn't want to be publicly hostile to the Boy-Who-Lived either, as that was not a Slytherin thing to do. A cunning person would attack people in the back, without them suspecting an attack. Doing otherwise would pose unnecessary risk.

They were therefore cold and calculated, collecting as much information as possible while observing Harry and Draco. To be fair, this was pretty much what Father asked Draco to do too: getting to know Potter and learning his tricks.

Things in Draco's life were getting pretty interesting.

-oOoOo-

The round-faced boy followed Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy silently, being grateful. He was a little disappointed though, that Harry Potter introduced himself to everyone but him. And Harry Potter gave chocolate to everyone but him.

He guessed it was his fault for not introducing himself first when he knocked the door. Damn, he wanted to kick himself for that. He even looked tearful – definitely not a good first impression. Harry Potter would want to hang out with cool kids, not a loser like him.

With a sigh, he followed them to the next compartment where two red-headed twin boys and a black boy with black hair and dreadlocks were chatting animatedly.

-oOoOo-

To be continued.


End file.
